


Closure

by lovesafragilelittleflame



Series: Butterflies [3]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-26 08:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30103056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesafragilelittleflame/pseuds/lovesafragilelittleflame
Summary: {Butterflies Series - Part Three} A year ago, I didn't know him. Seven months ago, he asked who the hell I was as I sat in his dressing room, waiting to break the news to him that I was his new publicist. Six months ago, we went to New York and nothing was the same after that first night. I didn't want things to ever be the same again. AU/AH/RATED M
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Series: Butterflies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144034
Kudos: 4





	1. Wide Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

**_Closure_ **

****

_Thunder rumbling_

_Castles crumbling_

_I am trying to hold on_

_God knows that I tried_

_Seeing the bright side_

_But, I’m not blind anymore_

_~ Katy Perry, **Wide Awake**_

****

**BPOV**

Large, muscular arms encircled me the minute I walked through the doors to the gym. The sudden chokehold would have been disconcerting had I not seen Emmett run around the desk to the door as I was walking up.

“Um, hi, Emmett,” I choked out, wrapping my arms around him and patting his back. “Everything okay?”

“No one interesting comes to the gym at six in the morning.”

I frowned against him. “I go to the gym at six in the morning.”

“Exactly. You’re the only interesting person. You have to stop leaving me alone with these people.”

I snorted, finally able to take a breath once Emmett released his hold on me. I hadn’t been to the gym all that much, definitely not daily like I had been used to for so long. After Thanksgiving and then my trip to New York and then my disastrous trip to Forks, I had been gone for a while.

“I’m not paying a membership fee. You should be glad whenever I don’t come in.”

Emmett scoffed, tossing an arm over my shoulder and leading me toward the same treadmill I always used. “Do you know how many guys have signed up because of you? More than covers it.”

It didn’t take me too long to piece together what he was implying. “Ew.”

It was stupid of me to not realize Emmett was my friend before a few months ago. Ever since Rosalie started working here years ago, he had always turned a blind eye when she snuck me in. Then, when he said I didn’t have to sneak in anymore, he always kept me company in the mornings.

Emmett was easy to be around. He was fun and could talk your ear off, but he was also quiet and laid back when the moment called for it. I wasn’t sure if Rosalie had told him about my childhood, but I had always noticed he kept an eye on me. Because, while no one interesting might be at the gym at six in the morning, plenty of creeps showed up.

Maybe creep was too harsh. Most were probably perfectly kind. Emmett just knew I wasn’t interested in any of them, and helped them get the picture.

Emmett got pulled away as soon as I started jogging, which was fine because I needed the time to think anyway. I had a meeting with Renata in two hours and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. She had refused me every time I had tried to quit last week, and Edward had told me that she gave him the money back because she wanted me back at her firm, but I still found it hard to believe after all of the trouble I caused.

Our meeting could very well be her telling me she was no longer interested. The way my stomach dropped at that realization told me all I needed to know.

I loved my job. Enjoyed it despite the stress and odd hours and I didn’t want to give it up. I just wasn’t sure if I was cut out for it anymore. I’d had more opportunities than most and quickly tossed them all away. There was also part of me that wondered if maybe, in the long run, not working together would make Edward and I’s relationship better. Easier.

He was very careful about what he told me about my job the last couple days. I could tell he still felt guilty about the check and didn’t want to seem like he was trying to sway my decision one way or the other. He was usually my voice of reason when I was this conflicted, but I also appreciated that he was letting me make the decision this time.

“You’re a reasonable man,” I mused, slowing to a walk as Emmett wandered back over to me.

“Try to be,” he shrugged.

“I got fired from my first job in publicity after having an affair with my only client and called my boss an insufferable prick on my way out. Quit my second one after finding out said client paid my new boss to give me a job. I didn’t call her any names as I left, but it wasn’t necessarily a civil conversation. Now, I have a meeting with her in an hour and a half where she’s supposedly going to offer me my job back. So, do I accept her offer or do I take the hint the universe is very obviously giving me and get out?”

Emmett crossed his arms, muscles bulging, as he stared at me. “Is there anything else you want to do?”

I shrugged. There wasn’t a single, logical, thing I could think of that I wanted to do. Figuring out I wanted to go into public relations was kind of a fluke on its own. The idea of having to find something else to do with my life kind of filled me with dread. “No. But, what if I’m just not cut out for it? Or working together eventually drives a wedge between Edward and I. Or – ”

“ _Or_ ,” Emmett interrupted. “You can finally put the drama of your affair behind you and focus on your work and come to a happy middle ground. Besides, you can’t honestly say you’d trust anyone else with Edward’s career at this point.”

He made an excellent point, about me not trusting anyone else with Edward. Not that I thought anything scandalous would happen between them personally, but that we had worked hard together to get his career back on track. He had a view on his image and publicity that most publicists would hate. I couldn’t see him working well with anyone else.

Still, I knew very well that I deserved to never work in publicity again. After getting fired from Newton & Cheney it was a three-million-dollar miracle that Renata had given me a second chance. Yes, I knew I deserved to be upset that her and Edward had made that deal behind my back, but storming into her office and accosting her about it wasn’t a very smart decision.

I’d had two jobs since graduating college eight months ago and had done nothing but prove I was, essentially, a volatile whore. Maybe whore was going too far, but I was sure I could find plenty of people to agree with me on it.

If I had an ounce of dignity, I’d cancel the meeting and tell her to let me quit. But… I wanted my job back. I hadn’t put myself through school, through all of the internships and interviews, to let myself fuck things up now. Maybe Emmett was right and I just needed to find a happy middle ground.

“You know,” I told Emmett, turning the machine off and grabbing my water bottle. “If I have a job at the end of the day today I can pay a membership fee.”

I had tried to pay a few times before, but he always told me no. It was a nice gym, and the membership fee reflected that. It definitely wasn’t something I could have afforded in college, which was why I had no problem accepting his offer to come in for free with Rose. But, if I had a job in two hours, it came with a salary I still wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

“If,” Emmett scoffed, ignoring the rest of my offer before getting called from the other side of the gym.

I didn’t have it in me to do anything else, so I waved goodbye to Emmett and headed home to get ready for my meeting. Renata had texted me her address, asking me to meet her there early this morning before she went to work. I wasn’t sure if it was a good sign she didn’t want to meet at the office, but I made sure to be standing outside her pristine, white door at exactly eight o’clock.

I straightened my black, high-waisted skater skirt and made sure my cream sweater was tucked in just right before ringing the doorbell. I was taken aback when another woman, blonde and beautiful and wearing only a black silk robe, opened the door.

“You must be Bella,” she said with a kind smile, stepping aside and welcoming me in. “I’m Carmen.”

“Hello,” I breathed out, racking my brain to remember anything about the woman in front of me even though I had no damn idea who she was.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly. “Renata has never mentioned me.”

“Oh, good,” I gasped. “I mean, not good that she never mentioned you,” I clarified, hoping I wasn’t about to cause any kind of fight between them. “Just… good that I didn’t somehow forget your name.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she added with a wave of her hand. “Come sit, Renata should be down soon.”

I followed her into the living room. I wouldn’t say I knew Renata very well on a personal level, but her house was nothing what I would have thought of her. She was my boss, so I guess it was natural for me to see her as more of an authoritarian, to only see the more strict side of her. I expected something stark and modern, not the cozy cottage feel I got as I walked in.

It was still pristine. There was art on the wall that, had I known anything about art, would probably be unbelievably impressive. Everything seemed spotless and I was going to make a conscious effort not to touch anything so I didn’t get it out of place, but it was a much softer home than I would have imagined. I sat down on a plush tan couch, Carmen sitting in a matching chair across from me.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Carmen smiled. “Ren has told me a lot about you.”

“All unfortunately true, I’m sure,” I frowned, knowing I had caused Renata more than a few problems.

Carmen craned her neck behind her, looking toward a staircase I could see around the corner before turning back to me. “I’m going to let you in on a secret,” she whispered dramatically, leaning forward. “Ren likes to put on a good show, act tough when she needs to, but she likes you.”

She piqued my interest, my head cocking to the side. I knew Renata tolerated me, appreciated my work ethic, but I never would have assumed she liked me.

“You remind her of herself, I think. You should have heard her the night you pulled Edward from The Late Late Show.”

“I thought she would have been more pissed than anything about that,” I mumbled honestly.

“Oh, she was. But, she also respects people who are willing to follow their gut. Even if she comes in here and gives you a hard time, I thought you should know you don’t have to worry too much,” Carmen finished with a smile.

Before I could respond Renata rounded the corner, looking as put together as ever. She also looked happier than I had ever seen her, too. I shook my head, almost feeling like I was in a dream.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Renata said quickly, subtly grabbing Carmen’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze as she walked past.

“You can take my seat,” Carmen said, hopping up and giving Renata a kiss on the cheek before turning to leave. “I’ll leave you two to talk. It was good to meet you, Bella,” she finished, turning back to give me a comforting wink before heading upstairs.

I pressed my lips together, any sense of comfort leaving the room with Carmen. All of my doubts and insecurities coming back and convincing me I was going to be jobless in a few minutes.

“Why did you get into public relations?” Renata asked quietly.

I hesitated, not expecting the question. I had an answer, Edward had asked me the same question not that long ago, but it still took me a minute to collect my thoughts. “To protect people from how brutal the media can be.”

Renata smiled. A full-face smile that I was sure I had never seen before. “ _That_ is why I can’t let you quit.”

I frowned.

“Most people get into it because they think it’s all glitz and glamour, because they want to work with the biggest names and make a lot of money doing so. You do it for the client.”

I shook my head. “There are plenty of people out there doing it for the client.”

“Lauren is in it for the fame. She has a habit of dropping a client after a year if they haven’t progressed enough to her liking. Eric is in it for the money. He can write a damn good press release, but he doesn’t care enough one way or another. Alistar does it because his father was in the business, but he has no real passion for it.”

My frown deepened. “I had an affair with my only client. I called William Newton an insufferable, misogynic prick when he fired me because of it. Then my boyfriend gave you three million dollars to give me a job. I just… I don’t know how I can recover from all of that.”

“The affair is inconsequential now. He’s divorced, you two are dating, end of story.” I had quite a lot to argue with that, but Renata continued. “You were completely justified to call Will an insufferable, misogynic prick. I’ve known the man for a long time, I know how much of a sleaze he can be. As for the money…”

For the first time since I had known her, I watched Renata struggle for the right words. She was an excellent publicist, and part of that was always having an answer prepared for any situation.

“I know there’s not much I can say to make you feel better about it, but I have never once regretted hiring you.”

I sat there, twiddling my thumbs, and made a promise to myself.

This was it. My last chance to get my act together. I wasn’t going to let my degree go to waste, because _I_ worked hard for it and I wasn’t going to let anyone else distract me from what I wanted. There would be no more Newton to get in my way, no more Irina to throw secrets in my face, and no more fathers to pull me away.

I loved my job, wanted to make a lifelong career out of it. So, that’s what I was going to do.

“I want to leak a story about the money,” I blurted out. If I was going back to work, I was going to do it with full transparency. I didn’t want to be constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering when someone would find out about the money. There was very little doubt in my mind that Irina wouldn’t hesitate to spread the rumor to anyone who would listen to her.

Renata frowned. “You want to add another thing to your list of things to recover from?”

“Irina knows. It’ll get out eventually. I’d rather have control over the leak than be surprised by it.”

Renata was quiet, before a small smile tugged at her lips. “Okay. I’ll take care of it.”

I nodded. “Okay.” 

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

I smiled. “Tomorrow morning.”

**_…Closure…_ **

“Are you a new intern, too?” The voice came from the man who had just walked past me. I had been lost in my own head, trying to continually tell myself I wouldn’t screw up my career for a third time, when he circled back and started to walk beside me.

“Excuse me?”

“They said another intern was starting today. Man, am I glad you’re here. Last week was insane. You know Cullen’s girlfriend, the publicist? Apparently, she dumped him, at least that’s what the rumor is. I saw him a few times, he didn’t seem too pissed but I guess he kept changing his mind on segments and made the writing staff work overtime and – “

“I’m going to stop you right there… Adam,” I said, looking down at the badge hanging around his neck. He was probably about twenty, excited about his new internship, and had no idea the hole he was digging himself in. “I’m not an intern.”

I tried to walk away and avoid having the conversation about who I actually was for both of our sakes, but he decided to walk with me.

“Oh, damn. Sorry. I just assumed, you look younger than most everyone here. I’m still getting used to everything I guess.”

“Intern’s badges are orange,” I told him. “Staff is blue,” I added with a point to the one clipped to my bag.

“Good to know,” he chuckled, still keeping pace with me as I walked. “So, what do you do here?”

I sighed and came to a stop. I knew most of the people that worked here these days, would exchange pleasant smiles or greetings when I passed them in the hallways. But, small talk or casual conversation as we walked down the hall… it wasn’t my thing no matter who it was with, save for a handful of people. Especially when the topic at hand was my own personal life.

“What department are you interning with?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“Oh, the writing department. How cool is that?”

I gave him a placating smile. Most people in the writing department actually hated me, save for Angela. They all wanted to do whatever they wanted, but a lot of times whatever they wanted wasn’t going to make Edward look good.

“So, maybe you should be in the morning writing meeting that’s ending in ten minutes, then?” I asked. I had worked hard to get the flow of this place back on track, and wandering interns wasn’t helping anyone.

“Oh, yeah. They actually sent me out to get a couple coffees, but then I got a little turned around. This place is like a maze, you know?”

“Take a right out of the writing room, there’s a kitchen area down the hall to the left.”

“Ah, went the wrong way I guess. Thanks. Hey, you never told me what you do here?”

I gave him what I hoped was more of a smile and less of a grimace. “Have a good day, Adam.”

As soon as I got around Adam, I saw Edward walking down the hall toward me. My mood lifted immediately, and I no longer cared how many more questions I’d have to endure from the nosy intern. Instead, my eyes floated up and down all six feet of the beautiful man sauntering towards me and I wondered how I ever survived any kind of platonic relationship with him.

“Hi,” I sighed happily, as soon as Edward was within earshot.

He gave me my coveted, lopsided smirk as he walked over. A warm arm wrapped around my waist and he pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. “Hi.”

“I brought you a coffee,” I added, holding up the warm cup and hearing Adam’s retreating steps.

Edward took the cup with a smile. “Thank you. What are you doing in the middle of the hallway?”

I linked my fingers through his as we walked the last few feet to his office door. “I ran into a very nosey intern who booked it as soon as he saw you and realized he was trying to gossip to me about my own life.”

For some reason, my mood wasn’t soured too much by Adam and his gossip. What left a knot in my gut was the knowledge that things were going to get much worse before they got better, and that Adam’s blunder was only the beginning.

In a few days’ time Renata would leak a story about Edward’s three-million-dollar _investment_ into her firm. Which would lead to another phase of stories about our relationship and everyone’s rightful assumptions that he had bought my job.

It would be worth it, though, to not have to constantly wonder when Irina or anyone else would find out and leak the story. I didn’t want anything holding me back, not anymore. 

The stories and assumptions and gossip were secondary to everything else I had going for me. I had a job that I loved and I had Edward. I had my Sunday’s with Masen and Lucy to look forward to every week, and I had the cutest, tiny little dog at home spending the day with Rosalie. There was also a beautiful house waiting to be bought after Edward and I looked at it tonight.

“I’m sorry about the intern,” Edward said as he closed the door to his office behind us.

“It’s okay,” I shrugged, deciding to wait until tomorrow to tell him about my decision to leak the story. It was, technically, work related. I wouldn’t do it if he was adamantly against it, but only if he was against it because of himself, and not because of me.

I sat down in the chair opposite of his desk, expecting Edward to sit across from me. Instead, he put his coffee down and leaned against the front edge of his desk, staring down at me.

I looked up at him with a smile, wondering how long he would last before asking me about my meeting. He was rarely a nervous man, but I watched as his fingers tapped against the desk, as his nose scrunched up every few seconds.

As cute as I thought his nervous habits were, I didn’t want there to be any lingering problems from last week.

“I start back at work tomorrow,” I said quietly, watching him press his lips together as I did.

His voice was gruff and uncertain when he spoke. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I nodded immediately, continuing when I saw the uncertainty stay on his face. “You were right. I love my job. Not more than you, but I do love it. So, if I have the opportunity to do it, I’m going to.”

I saw the guilt all over his face, and I didn’t like it. “I’m sorry I – “

I cut him off, standing immediately and covering his mouth with my hand. “No more apologizing, please.”

Once I had calmed down, it was easy to forgive the whole thing. Yeah, it hurt that he lied and went behind my back to do something I had explicitly said I didn’t want done, but I also saw the regret on his face every time it was brought up. I knew all of his dozens of apologies were sincere, and I knew he had only done it with the intention of trying to help me. There were very few people in my life that cared enough about my happiness to do something like that, so I wasn’t going to let it get in our way anymore.

After a minute I let my hand fall, Edward quickly grasping it in his.

“I’m glad you’re doing what you love,” he said quietly, giving my hand a squeeze.

I smiled. “Me too.”

We stood there for a few minutes, my arms eventually finding their way to the soft hair at the base of his neck and his landing dangerously low on my waist.

“Are we still going to look at the house later?” I asked, trying my best to hide my excitement. I had been hesitant about the whole house search, knowing it was a big step, but I was also tired of being scared of everything. I wanted to enjoy my life, and buying a house I would presumably spend the rest of my life in with the man I loved was pretty damn exciting.

Edward’s anxiousness disappeared, a smile taking its place. “If you’re free.”

I shrugged. “I’m free for the rest of the day.”

I gasped, my feet lifted out from underneath me as Edward set me on the edge of his desk. “Then you can spend the rest of the day here, with me.”

All I could do was nod, his proximity making most of my senses get confused and disoriented. I dug my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer as I craned myself up for a kiss.

I wasn’t really sure if it was normal, how a simple, innocent kiss could immediately make me want so much more. Sometimes all it took was a look, a particular glint in his eye, and my mind filled with memories of dark rooms and wandering hands and then my cheeks would burn every time I looked at him. Which made the glint return and the process start all over again.

I jumped at a trio of knocks on his office door, a soft voice coming through and telling Edward his rehearsal started in a few minutes.

My head fell against his shoulder as I tried to catch my breath.

“No one has had to come get me for rehearsal since my first year here,” Edward panted with a small laugh.

“Sorry to break your record,” I chuckled, pulling away to clear my head.

“I’m not,” he smirked, pressing a kiss to my burning cheek before taking a step back and helping me off of his desk.

I sat in an audience chair as he did his rehearsal, my mind finally dropping all of the worries about my job. It had been my main focus for so long, from the minute I moved to Los Angeles all I did was work toward a job to create a life for myself. It was a hard habit to break, constantly worrying about work and ignoring my own needs. It helped that I had much more to look forward to these days, most things revolving around the man sitting behind the dark desk in front of me.

My brain was still a jumbled mess, but focusing on him made things more clear. Because it wasn’t just Edward that I saw when I looked at him. He was the catalyst to a life I never knew I could have. One where I wanted to spend more time with him than apart, one where I got to know his kids and family better and forgot all about my own family for once.

I jumped when his hand ended up on my shoulder, breaking me out of my thoughts. He smiled down at me, grabbing my hand. “I have something to show you.”

I followed him without a second thought, only coming to my senses when he sat me down at a round table covered in those metal domes that you usually only ever saw on room service.

“What is this?” I asked, frowning as he sat across from me.

“A new game,” Edward said causally, nonchalantly turning the table and removing the covering of each thing. He had no reaction to each one, like he wasn’t uncovering something as horrifying as a cup of dried caterpillars. “The one Masen and I came up with a while back.”

I remembered the conversation quickly, my stomach churning at the thought of the game actually coming to life. “So, this is like a, uh, real segment now?” I asked, a sickeningly out of place fishy scent hitting me as a glass full of something thick and pale pink spun past me. _Salmon smoothie._

Edward smiled, sitting back in his chair. “You said it was a good idea.”

“No, no,” I clarified. “I’m pretty sure I said it was horrifyingly disgusting.”

“But, would make good television.”

I frowned down at the table, swallowing back the urge to gag as my eyes floated over the table.

“Ready?”

My frown deepened, this time directed toward Edward. “For what?”

“Your first question.”

An odd mixture between a laugh and a snort came out of me without a warning. “Oh, I’m not doing this.”

“It’s just a practice,” Edward smiled, looking like he was having far too much fun. “I do want your opinion on it, too. If you think it’s a shitty concept, I want to know.”

I sat back, pressing my lips together and spotted the stack of questions beside each of us. “I didn’t get to approve any questions.”

Edward shrugged, grabbing his stack. “These are just samples. Random, unimportant questions to rehearse with.”

As horrified as I was with the situation, Edward looked genuinely excited. The kind of excited I knew he hadn’t been about his job in a long time, which made him impossible to say no to.

I sat up in my chair, already regretting the words before they were out of my mouth. “You can go first.”

Edward smiled, taking a serious look at the table in front of us before turning it until the fragrant salmon smoothie landed in front of me. He shrugged when I eyed him, a wicked glint in his eyes. “I know you have no problem swallowing.”

My eyes widened, darting around the thankfully empty set before landing back on him. He looked far too pleased with himself and his dirty joke.

“Just ask the question,” I groaned, pushing the glass toward the center of the table to get away from the smell.

Edward grabbed his card, a smirk tugging at his lips as he read it to himself before looking up at me. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

I rolled my eyes. “If those are the kinds of questions you’re going to be asking, I don’t think this is a good segment.”

“They’re just samples. The questions will be tailored to each guest.”

I sighed, hoping that was my out. I supposed the simple question made my time at this revolting table easier, though, considering I lost my virginity to the man sitting across from me. “Twenty-two.”

Edward smiled, discarding the card and motioning for me to go next. I circled the table four times before I stopped a fish eye in front of him, deciding that it was the smallest, maybe the most normal, item on the table. An uncomfortable shiver went up my spine as I grabbed the card.

I snorted before asking, “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

Edward chuckled, surprising me by not simply answering right away. I watched, horrified, as he gently picked up the _fish eye_ and studied it.

“Oh, my God don’t eat it!” I gasped, petrified as he started to lift it to his mouth.

“The game is no fun if no one eats,” he countered.

“It’s a… great game,” I forced out. “It’s disgusting but it’ll get people’s attention. It _does_ make for great television. Please, don’t eat the eye.”

Edward sat back, dropping the eye and wiping his fingers on a napkin sitting beside him. “You really think it’s good?”

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. “Yes. If it were anyone else eating these things, I wouldn’t hesitate putting it on the show. I’m just not looking forward to you coming home with fish eye breath.”

Edward stood up, coming over and grabbing my hand. “I’ll be sure to brush my teeth before I see you.”

I nodded, standing up and walking hand-in hand with him through the theater. “A couple times, maybe. Just to be safe.”

“A couple times.”

“Why didn’t you want to answer the question?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Because you once told me you hated that I had history with other women.”

I pressed my lips together. I had told him that, and it was true, as irrational as it was. “I do,” I shrugged. “But, I like knowing things about you.”

After a moment of hesitation, he answered, “I was sixteen.”

I hummed to myself. “So… when I was four.”

“Okay,” Edward grunted, shaking his head like he wanted to clear it of everything.

“That,” I chuckled, knowing the drastic difference in our age back then would cause some kind of reaction out of him. “Is for almost making me drink a salmon smoothie.”

Edward let out a loud chuckle, draping his arm over my shoulder and pressing a kiss to the top of my head as we headed toward his office.

**_…Closure…_ **

****

The photos I had looked at, more times than I cared to admit, did absolutely no justice to the home. Nothing captured the warmth and comfort that immediately encircled you as you walked through the front door. My heels clicked on the hardwood as Edward and I walked through the house. I had to actively stop myself from gasping as we went room to room.

There was an office immediately to the right of the solid wooden front door, one Edward said was for me. There was a formal dining area opposite of it, big enough for his entire family to come over for dinner, but not so big that it seemed pretentious. The kitchen was stunning and made me wish I knew what to do in it, the marble of the two islands smooth and cool under my fingertips as I walked by.

There was nothing dark or imposing of the first floor, everything flowing from the family room to the living room to the kitchen with ease. The pale wood flooring matching the accents in the ceiling and the folding doors that encircled the back of the house.

A tree, beautiful and full, sat smack in the middle of the patio, the decking perfectly cut to surround it. There was a grill and plenty of outdoor seating, a large grassy area in the middle of everything for Lady to run around in, and a beautiful pool and hot tub on the other side of it.

The basement, which Masen had called dibs on in the car on the ride over, had no sense of being a basement at all. There was still plenty of light around, except in the movie room. There was a gym, one Edward said he would fill with whatever equipment I wanted, and a wine cellar that made me feel like I needed to know more than the difference between red and white to be near it.

The top floor was mostly bedrooms, including the one Lucy had already deemed hers because of the small patio outside of it. The master bedroom was stunning, a double-sided fireplace separating a seating area from the bed itself. The bathroom was bigger than my bedroom at home, the shower big enough to fit half a dozen people.

That was where I ended up. Sitting on the bench in the shower, Edward beside me, while his kids wandered through the house and the agent left us alone for a few minutes.

His voice was soft, but echoed throughout the shower. “Do you like it?”

I let out a snort that would had been embarrassing if I wasn’t so distracted. “Of course.”

“Enough to live here with me? With Masen and Lucy who have done an excellent job at showing you it’s not always easy living with them today?”

I chuckled softly. They had bickered most of the drive to the house, especially after Masen called dibs on the basement and Lucy was quick to inform him he couldn’t have an entire floor to himself. They had wandered the house on their own while Edward and I got a more detailed tour from the agent, and could be heard squabbling throughout most of the tour.

I didn’t mind, though. Because, it was a _home_. And the sound of kids arguing in the background only solidified that. I turned toward Edward, taking in the pretty green eyes that never failed to calm me down and the hair that never seemed to know which direction to go.

A year ago, I didn’t know him. Seven months ago, he asked who the hell I was as I sat in his dressing room, waiting to break the news to him that I was his new publicist. Six months ago, we went to New York and nothing was the same after that first night. I didn’t want things to ever be the same again. I wanted the home with the bickering kids, with family dinners and holidays and friends and maybe even a crying baby in the background eventually.

There was still that tiny voice in the back of my head, the one telling me I would never get any of those things, but that was what my appointment with Doctor Stanley on Wednesday was for.

My head moved in a jerky nod as I turned my face away to wipe at the tear that was threatening to fall down my cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I was pulled off of the bench before I finished the word, Edward’s arms around my waist so tight I could hardly breathe.


	2. Resilient

_I know there’s gotta be rain if I want the rainbows_

_And I know the higher I climb, the harder the wind blows_

_Yeah, I’ve gone to sleep night after night punching a pillow_

_But, do you know the darker the night, the brighter the stars glow?_

_~ Katy Perry, **Resilient**_

**BPOV**

I was close. So close to making it into my office without someone stopping me until I heard my name called right as I grabbed the door handle. I turned toward the voice, cocking my head to the side when I saw a new desk, separate from where the junior publicists and interns worked, just around the corner from my office.

“Hi,” the girl behind the desk said happily, coming around to stand right in front of me. Golden blonde curls fell down her shoulders and her bright, blue-green eyes stared at me with excitement. “Hi,” she repeated, giving me a small wave and a smile.

“Hi.”

“I’m Tanya. Your assistant.”

It wasn’t at all what I was expecting her to say, so I knew my confusion was written all over my face.

“Renata hired me a few days ago but today is my first day, because she said you were out of town. I’m ready to work, though. Whatever you need,” she said with a smile.

I was still completely lost.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I just, I didn’t know I was getting an assistant.” I turned around, noticing new desks near each of the other senior publicist’s offices.

“Assistants were the last to get hired, from what I’ve heard. Renata focused on the senior and junior publicists, then the interns to get things started.”

“Oh.” That made sense, I supposed. But, I had no idea what to do with an assistant.

“I got you a coffee,” she added, turning around to grab an iced coffee off of her desk. “I asked around, but no one knew what you got. I went with a plain vanilla latte, I hope that’s okay.”

I grabbed the outstretched cup, still in a bit of a daze. “That’s perfect. Thank you.”

“If you need anything sent to your junior publicists or interns, meetings made, I’m here.”

“Okay. I should…” I nodded, motioning to my office door. Before I closed the door, I turned back to Tanya. “Thanks again for the coffee.”

I let out a deep breath as I collapsed in my chair. There was a folder on my desk that I knew I hadn’t left there. Opening it, I saw the resume for one Tanya Harris. She was twenty-three and had the beginnings of a business degree from a local community college, but seemed to be taking time off from school for now. She had a few odd jobs here and there, none of which had anything to do with public relations. Thanks to the glass walls surrounding me, I looked to my right and saw her sitting at her desk, very meticulously organizing her supplies. 

The resume, it was just a piece of paper. She seemed nice and obviously eager to work and didn’t seem to care that she was the assistant to someone her exact age. She also hadn’t skirted around me like everyone else here. Maybe she didn’t know I was public enemy number one, or maybe she just didn’t care. Whatever it was, I liked her.

I forgot about my new assistant a few minutes after opening my email and getting sucked into the hundreds of unread messages. The only thing that broke me out of my focus was an awful buzz that eventually came from the phone on my desk.

“Ms. Swan? The front desk says Edward Cullen is here for you. Should I send him in?” Tanya’s voice came from the speaker.

I pressed the button I hoped meant she could hear me. “Yes, you can send him in,” I said, letting go of the button before pressing it down again. “You can send him in whenever he’s here, you don’t need to ask.”

“Will do, Ms. Swan.”

I pressed the button one more time. “Just Bella is fine, Tanya,” I said, smiling at her through the glass wall and getting a nod in return. I might have been a mess, but she didn’t seem to mind.

I smiled as Edward opened my office door, walking in with a smile of his own. I chuckled when I saw his black jeans and grey t-shirt.

“We match,” I said, standing up in my own black pencil skirt and grey sweater.

“We do,” Edward laughed, leaning across my desk to press a kiss to my cheek before sitting down across from me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, sitting down myself.

“You said you wanted to talk yesterday, so I thought I’d save you the trip.”

“Oh, right,” I mumbled. This seemed like one of those band-aid situations, where it was best to just rip it off and get it over with. “Renata is going to leak a story about your, um, investment into the firm.”

Edward was quiet for a minute, his eyes on me. Eventually, his voice was smooth and low when he said, “Why would she do that?”

“Because I asked her to.”

He was much worse at controlling his expression this time, the shock obvious as his eyes widened and he shook his head. “Why would _you_ do that?”

“Because Irina knows, which means it’s only a matter of time before it gets leaked anyway. I don’t want to constantly worry about that until it happens.”

Edward scrubbed his hands over his face, leaning over towards me. “It was the divorce.”

“What?”

“She found out because of the divorce. She had lawyers go through my finances with a fucking magnifying glass to make sure she got everything she could out of me.”

I figured as much, once I could objectively think about the situation without driving myself insane. How she got the information wasn’t the important part, though. She had it, and that was it.

“It’s going to make things just as bad as they were right after the picture,” Edward groaned softly.

“No, it won’t. Yeah, there are going to be stories and comments, but most people already assumed as much anyway. It’ll be fine.”

Edward took a deep breath, eying me like he was waiting for me to change my mind. After a few minutes passed and all I had done was sit there with a content smile on my face, he gave in. “May I offer a suggestion?”

I raised my brows, surprised. “Sure.”

“Come on my show.”

My brows immediately furrowed.

“I’m used to talk other people out of their scandals all of the time. It’s what I do. So… come on my show.”

My frown deepened. “Okay, see, now I don’t know if you’re joking or not. You tell a lot of jokes, and sometimes I just can’t tell.”

A hit of a smile tugged at his lips. “It’s not a joke.”

I opened my mouth to respond a few times, no words managing to make it out. It was a very sweet offer, because I knew it was probably all he could think of to do to try and help me. But, I just… couldn’t.

“I don’t…” I started, still looking for the right words. “Really know if that would help.”

“Why not?”

I pressed my lips together. “Because people already think I orchestrated some elaborate takeover of your life for money or attention. Putting me on the show is just going to add fuel to the fire.”

“They won’t, because you’re… _you_. Five minutes with you and anyone can see you’re nothing like what they’re saying.”

I let out a sigh, touched by how hard he was fighting to try and help me. He was _very_ hard to say no to when he looked so sincerely worried, especially when it was about me.

“Are you just trying to trick me into playing that gross game again?” I joked, hoping to change the subject.

He chuckled. “No. Although that could prove very interesting on air.”

I took another deep breath, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear just for something to do with my hands. “I just… I don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“Right now,” he added cautiously, sitting back in his chair and eying me. “Interesting choice of words.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I just…” Wanted to let him down without actually letting him down. But, I couldn’t say that out loud.

“After we get married,” he said confidently, sitting up with a proud grin.

“Excuse me?” I questioned, eyes wide.

“After we get married you’ll come on the show. Who gives a fuck what anyone thinks then?”

I let out an awkward chuckle, looking at him like he had three heads. It was very rare that I understood why nobody wanted to work with him in the first place, but he was being exceptionally stubborn today. I couldn’t actually be mad at him, though, not when he was being stubborn to try and help me in whatever little way he thought he could.

I looked at him for a minute, a proud smile on his face, and knew I didn’t care what anyone thought now either. Not for myself. I had to for his sake, because it was my job. But, when Edward Cullen looked at you with an infectiously happy smile as he talked about marrying you, it dulled the cognitive thinking part of your brain.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

I nodded. “If we get married and we get back here after a two-week honeymoon that we spent locked in a hotel room in the middle of Paris or London or Texas for all I care,” I shrugged, smiling as I lost myself in my own little fantasy of two weeks alone with him, of being his _wife_. It was enough to get me to agree to the whole thing. “I’ll do it.”

Edward nodded, holding his hand out to me immediately. “Deal.”

I shook his hand with a shake of my head.

He looked awfully proud of himself. “Was there anything else?”

I shrugged, my brain fried at the moment. “I don’t think so.”

“Good. How about lunch, then?”

“I… okay,” I mumbled, still very confused about how he managed to get me to agree to the whole thing, but somehow not regretting it.

“I’m going to have to veto Texas for the honeymoon,” Edward said causally as we stood side by side in the elevator.

A loud chortle escaped me, my head falling to his shoulder. I was in a bit of a daze for the whole lunch, mostly because sometimes it threw me for a loop that he so casually talked about us getting married. It shouldn’t have, not when he just agreed to buy a house for us to live in together, but it did.

**_…Closure…_ **

I had known for a long time that my childhood distorted the way I saw things. Happy families fascinated me in a way someone who grew up in one would probably never understand. People who had close relationships with their mothers, who called them once a week just to catch up or ask for advice, they were a mystery to me. I envied people who had close bonds with their siblings, people who were able to make friends in an instant without any hesitation holding them back, people who didn’t get a knot in their stomach whenever they were near a man they had never met before.

I knew my perception of the world was skewed, but I didn’t know how much until Doctor Stanley made a very simple statement this afternoon

_Your parents should be in prison._

It was one of the first times I was pretty sure she let her own emotions get to her. She was a therapist, a very good one if the amount I was paying her said anything about it, and even though I had told her some horrible things in the past she was always able to keep her own head. This evening, though, after I told her about my time with Charlie, she let that comment slip.

I had been in a bit of a spiral ever since.

I jumped when I felt the couch dip next to me. I had been home for hours, only managing to plop down on the couch and stare at a black television since. Lady had joined me, her fluffy little head resting on my leg and nudging me until I buried my fingers in her fur.

Now, Edward sat beside me. His brows furrowed about as deep as they could go. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask if I was okay or if I needed anything. He grabbed my hand that wasn’t petting Lady and gave it a squeeze. I wasn’t sure how long he was there before I finally started talking.

“I knew it was wrong,” I said quietly. “I _knew_ it, which is why I told people that I thought would make it stop. But, I…” I hesitated, feeling so, so stupid for never making the connection myself. “I never realized my parents should be in prison.”

Maybe, had the right people found out, they never would have ended up in prison anyway. They deserved some kind of punishment, though, and that was never something I had thought of.

All I had wanted was for them to care. When they didn’t, I had assumed there was something wrong with me. That I had done something wrong, that I wasn’t worth their time.

They were in the wrong. Not me.

“I wanted to meet Charlie while we were in Forks because I wanted to see him for myself. But, after we sat down… it took every ounce of my willpower not to…”

My head turned toward Edward. His hand squeezed mine tighter, his other balled in a fist beside him. He knew they were wrong. He had told me time and time again it wasn’t my fault. Even when he said he wanted to come in and meet Charlie, I hadn’t been sure what his motivation for the meeting was. Even now, a week and a half later, I could see the anger burning inside him.

I hated my parents, had for a long time. Based on his demeanor, it was very possible that Edward could have hated them more than I did.

“Do you know a good lawyer?” I questioned hesitantly.

His anger turned into curiosity. “You want to press charges against them?”

I shook my head. That seemed like a process I didn’t want to get lost in. “No, I just… I don’t want any of them near me ever again.”

Edward nodded slowly. “I know a good lawyer. I’ll call him tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, feeling a little better. “Can you stay for a while?”

A tentative smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah.”

I grabbed the television remote off of the coffee table and handed it to him, situating Lady and myself so I was lying on the couch with my head in Edward’s lap while she rested in the curve of my legs. I hadn’t had to tell him what to put on, the familiar theme song filling the room quickly.

We had started watching it weeks ago, but it was a show that I was pretty sure had been on the air nearly my entire life. _Survivor_. A random episode had ended up on the television one night as we were going to sleep, and then somehow we were hooked. It was an excellent binge watch, considering there were about forty seasons.

A few minutes in, Edward’s fingers drifted down my arm and intertwined with mine. “Stay with me this weekend.”

I twisted my neck, turning to look up at him. “What night?”

“Friday. And Saturday.”

I frowned. “What about Masen and Lucy?”

“They’ll be in and out. They spend most weekends going from friend to friend. Weekends are a good first step, I think.”

“Weekend _s_?” I asked, emphasizing the plural. There had only been a time or two when I spent the night at his house with Masen and Lucy. None of them were under normal circumstances, either.

“They have to get used to it somehow. I don’t like leaving you here all alone. Especially on nights like tonight.”

I sat up, much to Lady’s frustration as she hopped off the couch. “I’ll be okay.”

Edward gave me a small smile, cupping my cheek. “I know you will. I’d just prefer you to be okay at home. With me.”

“What about Masen and Lucy?” I repeated. My relationship with them was going well, had been for a while, and I didn’t want to do something to mess it up.

“I’ll talk to them tonight, but I think they’ll be okay with it. We’ll start with weekends and work our way from there.”

Considering I knew absolutely nothing about raising a child, I nodded and agreed to the plan. Maybe I was too drained to really worry about how big of a step it was, or maybe I didn’t like being left alone anymore, either. 

**_…Closure…_ **

****

Cooking… it was never my thing. Over the years I had learned I didn’t have the patience for it, mostly because it would take me too long to do simple tasks and by then something would be burned and I would have spent two hours cooking only to end up with something inedible. It didn’t seem like such a hassle whenever I cooked with Edward, though. Probably because I was given the most menial tasks, but I still enjoyed it more than I had before.

Which was why I thought I could handle cooking him a dinner on my own. It took me double the time the recipe called for after I triple checked everything and had to google what exactly the cooking terms they tossed out meant, but I was confident as I slid the lasagna into the oven that I hadn’t completely messed it up.

I was exhausted, but confident. Kind of.

I had left work an hour early to grocery shop, and only hesitated for a moment before letting myself into his house to start cooking. No one else was home, which was good because I spent the entire hour preparing the lasagna either cursing to myself or talking every step through to Lady as she watched me like she would let me know if I was about to mess something up. I had never been so relieved to start on dishes. There was nothing to mess up when washing a bowl.

“Oh, hi,” Lucy’s voice came from in front of me. I looked up and saw her fighting a smile.

I couldn’t blame the smirk. I was surrounded by probably double the number of dishes that a normal person would have needed to cook.

“Hi,” I smiled. I was going to take Edward’s plan to heart and hope that neither Masen nor Lucy would mind if I showed up to cook dinner. He told me neither seemed to mind if I spent the weekend, so I was hoping an hour or two alone with me before Edward got home wasn’t pushing the limit. “Sorry about the mess. I cooked dinner, I’m not just a slob,” I blathered on.

“What’d you make?” she asked, only slightly distracted as Lady greeted her.

“Lasagna,” I told her, setting a clean pan on the counter beside me. “I’m about ninety-percent sure it’ll be edible.”

Lucy chuckled, dropping her backpack on a stool and walking over to look in the oven. “It looks good.”

“Thanks,” I smiled. “I’m pretty sure I made enough for a family of six, so if you want to eat before your party, there’s plenty.”

Lucy nodded with a smile, picking up the pan I had just cleaned and turning to put it up.

“You don’t have to – “

“I can help,” she shrugged, grabbing the next bowl out of my hands and drying it off.

I tried to keep my smile to myself, and focused on the stack of dishes in front of me. We worked in a comfortable silence for a few minutes before Lucy spoke up again.

“How did you know my dad liked you?”

My brows shot up at the question. I wasn’t sure if it came from a place of wanting to understand our relationship more, or if she wanted a point of reference if there was a boy she liked in school. I was hoping it was the latter.

“I, well, I didn’t, not really. I always kind of assumed he hated me.”

“Oh. So, is the whole ‘the more a boy messes with you the more he likes you’ thing is true then?”

 _There was a boy,_ I thought, relieved I would be able to get off the subject of how I fell into bed with her father.

“To an extent, I think. But, I also think you can tell if a boy is worth your time by how he treats you, too.”

Lucy nodded and stayed quiet after that.

I went back and forth with myself on whether I should ask any follow up questions. I didn’t want her to think I was prying or trying to somehow replace any advice her mother would give her, but I also liked talking to her and feeling like I could ease any of her anxieties.

“Who’s the boy?” I asked gently.

She let out a loud sigh, and I thought I had crossed some invisible line, then the floodgates opened. “Ethan. We’ve been in the same class since, like, pre-school. But, now he’s all – and there are these dimples – and sometimes I _think_ he likes me but then he says something stupid and I just don’t know. I mean, I guess its kind of irrelevant. Dad still doesn’t want me to date after the whole Derek thing. I don’t even know if _I_ want to date after the whole Derek thing. But, the _dimples_.”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t like that she was holding herself back because of Derek. “Not all boys are like Derek,” I said softly. “I mean, you still shouldn’t go sending pictures of yourself to them, or anyone really. But, Derek was an asshole. Maybe just… try to spend more time with Ethan. Get to know him better, and you might be able to get a better feel on how he feels about you.”

“I can do that,” Lucy nodded, putting the last pan in the cabinet. “Thanks, Bella.”

“Thanks for helping me clean,” I smiled, drying my hands off.

“I should go get ready,” she added, heading off toward the stairs.

“Is Masen here?” I asked, realizing I didn’t see him when she walked in.

“No, he went straight to Brett’s,” she shouted from the stairs, adding that a friend of hers was coming over before they went to the party, too.

I nodded to myself, and started peeling apples for dessert. Just as I started worrying that maybe Edward wouldn’t have wanted me to give his daughter dating advice, the doorbell rang. I could hear the music coming from Lucy’s room and assumed she wouldn’t have heard the door, so I headed to get it myself with Lady following along.

That was the best part of having her. She was a constant companion wherever I went. The sound of little paws on the floor followed me everywhere, and it was more comforting than I would have guessed. 

I wiped the apple juice on my apron, opening the door to a friend of Lucy’s I had never seen before, along with who I assumed was her mother.

“Hi,” I said with my best smile. “Lucy is upstairs.”

“Thanks,” the girl smiled. She had her black hair tied up in a pony tail, a bag tossed over her shoulders. The only friends of Lucy’s I had met seemed like the kind of girls I would have avoided like the plague in high school. This girl seemed much more like Lucy to me.

“I’m glad to see Ed finally got some help,” the mother said, an obviously fake smile on her lips.

“Oh, I’m not – “

“I’ve always told him he needed someone to help around the house, it’s too big to keep up. I was so sorry to hear about the divorce, although we all knew the odds weren’t in their favor, getting married at eighteen. Anyway, I know he’s still at work, but I made these for Ed and the kids. Tell him I’d love to take him out to dinner when he’s free, get him back out after the divorce and all.”

A pan of brownies was shoved in my arms, the woman retreating to her tiny little sports car before I could say a word. I let the door fall shut, staring down at the pan of brownies and wondering how exactly the woman managed to hurl so many insults in such a short amount of time.

“Sorry about my mom. She has no boundaries. She also knows you’re his girlfriend, she’s just in denial that she missed her opportunity with Mr. C.,” the girl, who had stopped halfway up the stairs, stared down at me with a kind smile. “I would throw the brownies out, too, if I were you. Mom isn’t the best baker.”

“Oh,” I sighed, still a little shocked at the whole interaction. “Thanks.”

The girl, whose name I still didn’t know, headed off upstairs and I sulked back to the kitchen. I dropped the pan on the counter, leaning back against the cabinets with another frustrated sigh.

“She asked me to ask my own boyfriend out on a date with her,” I grumbled to Lady, reaching down to give her a tiny piece of apple. First, she took a shot at me and called me Edward’s help. Then, knowing I wasn’t the help she asked me to ask my own boyfriend out for her.

As I was finishing dicing up the apples I realized Edward was the dad. The one at the fancy school where all of the moms were sitting around waiting for him to get a divorce so they could pounce, whether they were married or not. Now that he was officially divorced I was apparently just in their way.

I took my anger out on the apple crisp, mushing together the topping and setting it aside to put in the oven after the lasagna was done. I hadn’t heard him come in, but when I turned around Edward was standing in the middle of the kitchen, eyes on me.

“Hi,” I smiled, my bad mood disappearing for now.

“Hi. You’re here early,” he said with his own smile, dropping his suit coat on the counter.

I untied my apron and hung it back up next to his before meeting him in the middle of the kitchen. “I made you dinner,” I said proudly, smiling to myself when his arms locked around my waist as soon as I was within reach.

“You did?”

I couldn’t exactly be hurt by the shock in his voice, not when he had seen first-hand the damage I could do in a kitchen.

I nodded. “Lasagna.”

“That’s my favorite,” he mumbled, looking down at me.

“I know.”

Edward did far more for me than I did for him. He showed up at my house after therapy appointments because he knew I’d be upset. He constantly cooked for me and he put up with my dozens of problems with a smile on his face. Attempting to cook his favorite meal was the least I could do.

Just as I reached up on my toes for a kiss, the sound of feet running down the stairs pulled me away.

“We’re going to go,” Lucy said, begrudgingly giving Edward a hug when he grabbed for her.

“Be careful,” he warned in his best dad voice.

“I will.”

“Text me when you get to Elise’s for the night.”

“I will.”

“Remember to – “

 _“Dad_ ,” Lucy wined, grabbing her keys from her bag. “I’ve got it. Bye, Bella.”

I waved to her as she left, turning back toward Edward. “Wine?”

Edward nodded, chuckling as I shooed him away from the kitchen to get it myself. We spent the remaining time as dinner finished cooking on his couch. I told him about my conversation with Lucy and he came to the unfortunate conclusion that he couldn’t keep her away from boys forever.

When the timer finally went off I exiled him to the outdoor dining table so I could finish up in the kitchen. I was awfully proud of myself as I carried the plates out to the table. My lasagna actually tasted like lasagna, and the hours it took me to get to it no longer mattered.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Edward said through his smile as I put a plate of food in front of him.

“You always cook for me,” I countered softly. “You do a lot of stuff for me. So… I wanted to do something for you.”

He looked down at me for a minute, a soft smile tugging at his lips as he pressed them gently against mine.

Our dinner was surprisingly delicious. I wasn’t exactly sure how I managed to not mess up a single thing, even remembering to get the apple crisp out of the oven before it burned.

We ended up back on the couch inside after dinner, Edward with a beer in his hand and my wine sitting in front of me. It was the first opportunity I had to relax all day so I took advantage of the peace and rested my head against Edward’s shoulder, matching my breathing to his.

Lady was curled in a ball by the fireplace to our right, snoring softly. The city lights reflected through the window in front of us. It gave my mind the perfect opportunity to remember my frustrations from earlier.

“Lucy’s friend who was here…” I mumbled, trying to remember a name.

“Elise.”

“Elise,” I nodded. “Her mom told me to ask you out for her. She also baked you brownies, but I threw them away.”

He didn’t look at all surprised, only rolling his eyes.

I frowned. “How many other women have asked you out since your divorce was finalized?”

He hesitated for a moment too long, which told me all I needed to know.

“I knew it!” I gasped, probably a little too loud. “You’re the dad at school that everyone wanted but always said no to the vultures and now that you’re divorced they’re all waiting in line like I’m not there at all,” I grumbled. “I mean, what’s the point of going through a giant scandal where people talked nonstop about our relationship if they’re just going to forget I existed anyway?”

It frustrated me more than it should. He was a handsome man and I knew there was no way he would go through his life without women hitting on him, whether he was single or not.

Still. I’d had to deal with Irina purposefully calling him her _husband_ around me because she knew it would piss me off. I’d had to spend months hopelessly in love with him while he was married, still technically her husband so I had no right to be angry at her at all. Now, he was divorced and he still had women swarming him when he was supposed to just be _mine._

He leaned forward to set his beer down and then pulled me over so I was straddling his lap. “I may have had a few offers, each of which I politely declined.”

I let out a heavy sigh, dropping my arms over his shoulders so my fingers could tug at his hair. I took in his sparkling eyes and cheeks that were a little flushed from the alcohol. All things I was sure countless women had fantasized about. Only I got them, though.

I wasn’t sure if I was an inherently jealous and possessive person. They weren’t traits I had ever really seen in myself before, not to this extent. Maybe it was something left over in my subconscious after our affair, after having him in the most intimate of ways but still not having him as mine.

He was now though. Mine. So, it was stupid to get upset over Elise’s mother or the countless others who had come running after the papers were signed. He signed those papers for me, not them.

“Edward,” I sighed, letting my body relax against his. Warm hands slid up my thighs, his fingers twisting at the fabric of my dress and distracting me. I had chosen the dress more for comfort than anything else, the forest green velvet fabric soft and the fit of the dress on the large side. There was a deep v neck, stopping in the center of my chest but the long sleeves and loose fit down my thighs made up for it. “I’m really glad you’re divorced.”

We never really talked about it. The day his divorce was finalized was the day I ended up running off to Forks. Then we had a whole new set of problems to solve when I got back and it was never really discussed.

I knew it was a long time coming for him, but I also knew it was a big step he had hesitated to take for nearly just as long. He didn’t seem to have any regrets, though, at least not in the months leading up to it.

The quick smile at my words also seemed to prove he was probably as relieved at the divorce as I was. “Me, too.”

That was all that mattered, I told myself. Elise’s mother could make him brownies once a week and he’d still be mine. My lips fell onto his, the kiss a little difficult with the smile that kept tugging at my lips.

My smile disappeared on a moan after his teeth dug into my bottom lip. His hands dug into my thighs, squeezing like he was making sure I was real. Mine did the same, digging into his shoulders. My fingers moved into his hair, lips falling against his in a kiss that never quite felt like it was enough.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed on the couch, but by the time I was plopped on my feet against Edward’s bedroom door I was out of breath and only concerned with how fast I could remove his clothing. 

The click of the lock on his door made my fingers freeze halfway through the buttons on his shirt.

“In case anyone decides to come home early,” he explained quietly.

Before I could get lost on a tangent about that, his fingers were buried in my hair, angling my face up for a kiss that cleared my head yet again of every thought that wasn’t centered around Edward.

“You have no idea,” he sighed, both hands cupping my cheeks and tilting my head up to look at him. “How long I waited for you.”

My entire body relaxed, his words sending a wave of peace through my veins. I reached up on my toes for another kiss, managing to undo the rest of his buttons with one hand as he backed me up towards the bed. He slid my panties down my legs a second before we collapsed against the mattress.

There was nothing in the world that simultaneously relaxed and exhilarated me as feeling all six feet of him on top of me. He usually kept most of his weight off of me, but I always knew nothing bad would ever happen when I was this close to him. The exhilaration part came when one of his hands slid down my torso, two fingers easily sliding inside me.

I buried my head against his shoulder, my breathing coming in sporadic pants. Especially when his teeth sank into my neck. He mumbled something against the tender skin, but the only word I could catch was _taste._

Edward rolled onto his back, taking me with him until I was settled on top of him. My body had broken out into a sweat, the thick material of my dress not helping. I tossed it across the room quickly, enjoying the slightly slack-jawed look I got in response. My stomach twisting when it turned into a cocky smirk.

“I want a taste,” he said, practically growled, before his grip tightened on my waist. His hands were quick and firm, lifting my hips and dragging me up his body before I could think about what he was doing. 

His head was between my legs, his tongue taking over the pleasure his fingers were giving me just a moment earlier, and I had no time to over think the position I had found myself in. His hands were on my hips, pushing and pulling me in whatever way he wanted against his mouth.

The headboard gave me no leverage, so one of my arms fell back against his chest while the fingers of my other hand knotted themselves in his hair. My eyes had been squeezed shut, cutting off one of my senses while all of my others were over stimulated. The second they popped open, falling down to the forest green ones that looked up at me from between my legs, my orgasm crashed through me.

It wasn’t until I was on my back on the bed, Edward naked and hovering over me, that I got my wits about me again.

“You’re gorgeous when you come,” he smiled, hitching one of my legs over his hip and entering me in one single stroke.

I whimpered, my body still sensitive from just a few minutes earlier but also craving more. My palms slid across his chest, constantly craving the warm, soft skin under my fingertips. 

Eventually, it got to be too much again. My legs were locked around his waist, my nails biting at the skin of his shoulders as I held on to him as tight as I could. The taste of him saturated my senses and my eyes squeezed shut when it all got too overwhelming.

“No,” he grunted, his hands tightening their grip on my hip. “Eyes on me.”

My orgasm started rolling through my body before my eyes even opened, my back arching against him as he groaned into my shoulder and spilled his release inside me.

“Oh, my God,” I panted, my limbs completely useless. Edward was collapsed on the bed beside me, his breathing coming just as harshly as mine.

His head turned toward me, a smile and a chuckle on his lips. “Fuck, you’re cute.”

Once I could move, I stumbled into the bathroom to clean myself up but opted for a full shower to calm my still overstimulated body. I jumped when warm hands wrapped around my waist just a minute after I had gotten in.

“Thank you,” Edward whispered softly into my neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the skin. “For putting up with the divorce and nosy school parents. For cooking dinner and giving Lucy advice I never could have given her.”

He twisted me around by his hold on my hips, my favorite lopsided smile on his face. “I don’t really know what I’d do without you.”

A small smile tugged at my lips. “Good thing you’re stuck with me, then.”

A hearty chuckle escaped him, his hands snatching the wash cloth out of my hands.

“I thought you were thanking me for the mind-blowing sex,” I blurted out when he was on his knees in front of me, running the soapy cloth over my legs.

His head fell against my abdomen, his body shaking with a laugh before he pressed a kiss to my stomach. “Thanks for that, too.”


	3. I'm a Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a lot of legal jargon in here, and while I spent a lovely afternoon researching restraining orders, I had to take some creative liberties as well. Please, no legal lectures needed for the things I got wrong!

_Everything’s gonna be alright_

_Everything’s gonna be okay_

_It’s gonna be a good, good life_

_That’s what my therapists say_

_~ Bebe Rexha, **I’m a Mess**_

**BPOV**

I had a fair amount of clothing options hanging in Edward’s closet, had tried on a majority of them in the half hour I had been standing here, but none of them felt right. I didn’t feel like wearing a dress and jeans seemed too casual but then a skirt felt too formal. Which led to Edward finding me sitting on one of the plush grey benches in the closet, staring at the wall.

“You okay?” he asked softly, sitting next to me.

I shrugged, tugging at my fingers in my lap. “I don’t think I’m handling the whole lawyer thing very well.”

“I can call and cancel if you want?”

“No,” I said too quickly.

My clothing dilemma was just a distraction, I knew what I wore didn’t matter all that much. But, it was easier to think about than whether or not the lawyer coming over would believe anything that I said.

“What if,” I sighed, chewing on my bottom lip before continuing. “What if he thinks I made everything up, too?”

I kept my eyes on the wall in front of me, feeling Edward take a deep breath beside me. I frowned when he stood up, my attention turning toward him as he went and started rummaging through one of the drawers on his side of the closet. Before I could say anything, he came back over with a plain black CD case in hand.

“This is the security footage from the theater, the night… they were there.”

My frown deepened as I stared at the disc.

“Jenks has been our family lawyer since I can remember. He’s a good man, and a good lawyer. He’d believe you without the footage. It might make it easier to get a restraining order with it, though.”

I fought against the nearly overwhelming urge to snap the flimsy plastic case in my hand. Which I knew meant, as much as I was dreading the process, I needed to do it in order to be able to move on.

“How long have you had this?” I asked quietly.

Edward shrugged. “Since the morning after it happened.”

The ring of the doorbell just about made me jump off of the bench. Edward stood up, pulling me with him and cupped both of my cheeks.

“It’ll be okay. I promise.”

It was silly of me to always believe him when he promised me everything would be okay. I was more than aware that there were things out of his control, things he couldn’t promise no matter how much he wanted to. His promises always made me feel better, though.

I quickly pulled on an olive-green t-shirt and a pair of well-loved jeans as Edward went to answer the door. I kept the disc in my hand, and forced myself to put one foot in front of the other as I headed downstairs.

“Mom,” I heard Edward hiss as I got closer to the first floor. “You don’t need to be here. Please, drop it.”

“Edward, if you’re calling Jenks it’s because something is wrong and I – “

“It was for me,” I interrupted, taking the last few stairs down and ending up beside Edward.

They were all still gathered in the doorway, Esme and the man I had to assume was Jenks standing outside while Edward had a firm grip on the door handle.

Jenks looked to be in his late forties, maybe early fifties. His hair was blonde, slicked back a little, and his eyes a green nowhere near as enticing as Edward’s. He was in a suit that probably cost around five-thousand-dollars, but he didn’t give off an arrogant vibe most people wearing the same would have.

“I’m sorry you were worried. I asked Edward if he knew a good lawyer and…” I hesitated, not sure if I had it in me to explain the situation more times than I already had to today.

“Are you okay?” Esme asked, none of her worry disappearing after I told her Edward was fine.

“Mom, it’s – “ Edward started, but I didn’t let him get too far.

“It’s okay,” I told him, giving his arm a squeeze. He let the door fall open, Jenks and Esme walking through.

“Isabella,” Jenks said with a smile, holding his hand out. “Jason Jenks. Edward said you needed some help?”

I shook his hand, trying my best to give him a smile in return. “Just Bella.”

“You two can take the dining room,” Edward said, motioning down the hall and toward the five-person circular glass table I knew was waiting.

Jenks went ahead. I assumed he had been here before and knew exactly where he was going. I took a couple steps after him, Edward quickly following me.

“You can tell her,” I told him softly, my eyes drifting to Esme still standing in the doorway.

He started shaking his head immediately. “If you don’t want people to know – “

“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “She’s worried about you, and if you don’t tell her the truth she’s going to assume it’s worse than it is.”

My childhood wasn’t something I wanted to broadcast to everyone I knew, but I also knew taking the step of getting a restraining order was going to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. People would find out, hopefully just a small number of them, but it was more than I would have ever wanted. Esme, and subsequently Carlisle, finding out was hardly the worst-case scenario.

Edward looked frustrated, but his face softened when I squeezed his hand. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

I nodded, stretching up on my toes to press a kiss to his cheek before I turned and headed for the dining room.

Jenks was already seated at the table, a notepad in front of him. He gave me another warm smile as I sat down across from him. Lady appeared at my side, sitting down beside my chair with a sigh.

“So, what can I do for you, Bella?”

I took a deep breath, digging my nails into my palms as I spoke. “I need a restraining order against my step-brother. My parents, too, if I can get one. I don’t really know the requirements for them, though,” I blathered on, stopping myself before I got off topic.

Jenks nodded, not showing any emotion other than curiosity as he took notes. “Let’s start with your step-brother. What did he do?”

“Sent me to the hospital a few dozen times from the ages of eight to eighteen,” I said quickly, deciding being as blunt as possible might make the process move along faster.

There was no gasp, no pitiful look, nothing as Jenks nodded and continued to write. Some people might have thought it a rude reaction, but I appreciated it. I wasn’t telling him for anything other than his legal help, and that was all he was going to take away from the situation. It allowed me to dig my nails out of my palms.

“You’re twenty-three now, correct?” He asked, and I nodded. “He hasn’t hurt you since you were eighteen?”

I was about to agree, then my eyes caught the disk I had set on the table. “He showed up at my work a few months ago and nearly broke my nose. This is the, uh, security footage,” I said, sliding the disk across the table.

He nodded, taking more notes before asking me a few other questions. They were never about the validity of what I was saying, but general questions about the situation. The extent of my injuries, how often they happened, things like that. He gave nothing away, either, on whether or not I could actually get the restraining order or not.

“Now, about your parents,” he said, flipping the page on his legal pad. “Were they aware of what was going on?”

“I told them both,” I said, attempting to keep my voice from weakening. “My mother didn’t care and my father didn’t believe me.”

After a few more miscellaneous questions, Jenks was quiet for a minute as he looked over his notes.

“You have a very strong case to be granted a domestic violence restraining order against your step-brother,” Jenks said evenly. “We can file the paperwork Monday, and you’ll likely be granted a temporary restraining order until the court date, should the judge accept the case. It shouldn’t be more than a month away. He’ll be served the papers in Florida and given the opportunity to answer to the allegations, a chance to say his side of the story and appear in court here if he wants.”

I frowned. “I have to go to court?”

I didn’t know much about the process of getting a restraining order, and hadn’t bothered to look it up in the past few days. I was kind of hoping it was a magical process where I didn’t have to go to court or sit in front of a judge or anything, though. 

“Yes,” he nodded. “Shouldn’t take long, an hour at the most. You have physical evidence. Hospital records and the tape should be more than enough to corroborate your story and prove he’s a threat. Especially if the last altercation was only a few months ago.”

I nodded as he went on.

“Taking action against your parents would be more complicated. If they never physically harmed you or verbally threatened you, you’re not going to get a restraining order against them. They could very easily be charged with child neglect, though. You’re within the statute of limitations and it sounds like there is enough of a paper trail to make your case.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. I knew the odds of a restraining order against Charlie or Renee were slim, but I didn’t expect him to say I had a case to press charges.

“The sentence isn’t horrible, typically a year in county jail. But, it’s something. That being said, you could also press charges against your step-brother if you want to go through that process as well.”

I nodded, the onslaught of information overwhelming. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through the process of pressing charges against Charlie and Renee. I hated them. Would love nothing more than to have them face some kind of punishment, but it wasn’t going to solve any of my problems. It would probably only create more problems once word got out about the whole thing.

Pressing charges against Tyler sounded much more appealing.

“What are the odds that my step-brother would get any kind of punishment?” I asked quietly, even though I knew they weren’t good. As fucked up as it was, I knew even with the video and the restraining order and hospital records, if I took Tyler to court it would probably cause me more trouble than him.

Jenks nodded solemnly. “Probably not great. He might get a little time, though.”

“Can the restraining order… is it public knowledge?” I asked.

“Most are,” Jenks said. “Because you were a minor at the time of the indiscretions, I think we’ll be able to keep all court proceedings sealed, though.”

“Can I go ahead with the restraining order and still think about what to do about my parents?”

“Of course,” Jenks said, a kind smile on his face. “The statute of limitations on a child neglect case can go up to ten years. You’ve got time.”

“I think,” I sighed. “I’d like to go ahead with the restraining order, then.”

My nails were back to digging into my palms. My bottom lip was lucky to be in one piece, and Lady was long gone after my bouncing leg got too annoying for her.

Jenks nodded. “I’ll file the paperwork Monday morning. As… unfortunate as the situation is, you have a strong case in court, which should make this process easier for you.”

“Thank you for your help,” I sighed, forcing my body to relax. Then the topic of payment crossed my mind. “Do I pay you upfront, or – “

“Oh, no. Everything is taken care of already,” Jenks said quickly, packing up his things.

Edward and Esme walked around the corner, so I didn’t get to ask any more questions about it. I stood up from my spot as Jenks did the same, my muscles feeling like I had just run ten miles instead of sat in a chair for an hour.

“It was lovely to meet you, Bella,” Jenks said, coming around to shake my hand again. “I’ll keep you updated on our progress.”

He said his goodbyes to Edward and Esme, before the three of us were left in the dining room.

Edward was next to me before I could say anything, rubbing a soothing hand up and down my arm. “You okay?”

I nodded, smiling up at him. I was more okay than I thought I’d be after the meeting. Almost better than okay. My eyes drifted to Esme, standing to the side with red eyes and a Kleenex clutched in her hand.

“I’m sorry for interfering in your business,” she told me sincerely, looking like she was on the verge of a new round of tears. I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I expected from her, but I wasn’t sure if this was it.

“It’s okay,” I told her.

She started shaking her head, looking like she was going to argue, but then settled for wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug. Nothing like the few gentle ones I had received from her in the past.

“If you ever need anything,” she whispered against my hair. “Absolutely anything, you come to Carlisle and I, okay?”

My chest constricted immediately, as soon as I realized she had reacted the way any loving mother would have when Edward told her about my upbringing. Not only that, but she was offering me the love of a mother and father that I had never had. Seemingly without a second thought about it.

I knew we had a pleasant relationship, Esme and I. I could hold a conversation with her without saying something stupid and genuinely enjoyed her company. She gave me the emerald that was currently hanging around my neck, and had been nearly every day since. She very nearly bought me a car after my outburst on Thanksgiving.

I just didn’t know that was what a mother did, how they acted. Because I had never experienced it.

Instead of telling her I was fine again, or that she didn’t need to worry about meddling or deflecting in any other way, I felt my own arms tightening around her. “Okay.”

Esme pulled away with a gentle smile, pressing a hand to my cheek before turning toward Edward. “I’ll leave you two alone, now,” she sighed, pressing a kiss to Edward’s cheek before making her exit.

Edward and I ended up on the lounge chairs in the far corner of his backyard. They overlooked the canyon right below his house, and the city in the distance. He was quiet, sitting in the chair next to me. I could feel him watching me, but I kept my focus on the twinkling buildings in the sunlight and the soft fur underneath my fingertips. At least until I could focus.

“I have to go to court,” I sighed. “To get the restraining order.”

I saw him nod in my peripheral vision. “Are you still going to do it?”

My answer was immediate. “Yes.”

“Good.”

The bite in his voice took me by surprise. My head turned toward him, and I watched as he tried to control the obvious anger he had growing inside him. I figured it was best to give him all of the information at once, in case there was more fuel to be added to the fire before I tried to put it out.

“He said I could press charges against all of them. Charlie and Renee might get a year or so in jail, but… Tyler… probably wouldn’t get much more than a slap on the wrist.”

I swallowed back some bile in the back of my throat. I didn’t say his name much. Maybe it was a stupid little thing, but saying it out loud always made me a little nauseous.

In the corner of my eye I watched Edward run a frustrated hand through his hair half a dozen times.

I left him to come to his own conclusions while I tried to organize my own thoughts. Jenks had said I had time to think about what to do regarding Charlie and Renee, but I didn’t want it hanging over my head. I wanted to get the entire situation behind me as quickly as possible.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked Edward quietly. “About Charlie and Renee?”

There was no point in trying to press charges against Tyler. He was a privileged white man playing minor league baseball who could do no wrong in anyone’s eyes. It would only dig up more trauma if I went down that road.

Charlie and Renee were a different story though.

I looked over at Edward, realizing he hadn’t answered yet. The frustration and anger were clear on his face, his hands were in fists in his lap and he didn’t seem to be able to look in my direction.

“I don’t think I can give you unbiased advice on the situation,” he gritted out. “They all… they disgust me. I would put them all through hell if it meant they got any kind of punishment for –”

He shook his head, his eyes finally meeting mine. “You’re not that vindictive, though. Putting them in jail, no matter how long it was, it wouldn’t make you feel any better, would it?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what it was going to take for me to ever feel _better_ about the whole thing, but I knew pressing charges wasn’t it. It would solve none of my problems. The damage was already done.

“I just want them to leave me alone,” I whispered, my voice cracking involuntarily.

Edward stood up, quickly situating himself on the lounge chair behind me. His arms were tight around my waist, his hands grabbing mine and giving them a firm squeeze. He pressed a kiss to the back of my head.

“Then, you get the restraining order,” Edward said quietly, his arms tight enough around me to feel like they were holding me together. “You can change your number, so Charlie doesn’t have it anymore. The new house… it has a gate and more security cameras than you can imagine. They won’t get near you again. I promise.”

It was another one of those promises. The ones I knew he couldn’t keep no matter how hard he tried. I took comfort in it, anyway.

**_…Closure…_ **

“So, which one is Lauren?” Ashley whispered to me as we walked out of the conference room late Monday morning.

“Um, blonde to the left,” I muttered, seeing her sitting in her office down the hall. “Why?”

“She handled a few things for me while you were out of town. Did you know she hates you?”

“Yes,” I chuckled, taking a quick detour to my office to grab my bag before walking toward the elevator with Ashley. “How do you know she hates me?”

“Oh, she made it very obvious. Everything you’ve ever done for me is wrong, according to her.”

I rolled my eyes, stepping into the elevator and pressing the button for the parking garage. I could accept the fact that Lauren might not agree with my own strategies, but flat out telling another person’s client that was crossing a line, even for her.

“Did she tell you that you should be on the cover of every magazine imaginable, doing every talk show, and over exposing yourself to the point where you go insane?”

“Basically.”

I had never noticed it before, not until Renata pointed out why exactly Lauren and the other publicists did what they did, but their perspectives on the job were now very obvious to me. Lauren tried to over expose her clients to make more money. Eric did what needed to be done and very little more. Alistar was very by the book and hadn’t adapted to any more modern ideas.

They were all excellent at their jobs. In this town you could find a hundred different people that would be on board for each of their strategies. It just wasn’t the way I liked to do things.

“Do you want to be doing more?”

I knew she didn’t. I liked to think I knew Ashley and how she wanted to work her career fairly well at this point. Still, if what Lauren had said had interested her in any way, I’d try to make it work.

“Oh, not at all. I think things are going good… don’t you?”

Ashley’s career was better than good. Her album was still selling at an impressive rate when selling albums wasn’t an easy thing to do. She had been asked to open for a few different summer tours and do a handful of festivals as well.

“It’s going to be good,” I assured her, stepping out of the elevator.

“Don’t go out of town and leave me with her again… okay?”

I smiled over at Ashley, her own car pulling right up to the elevator for her to get in. She was young and had more pressure on her than any other eighteen-year-old could imagine. She didn’t need Lauren convincing her that her entire plan for her career was wrong just because she didn’t agree with it.

“Okay,” I nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ashley smiled and hopped into the car, and I walked over to my own. I was parked on the UCLA campus not twenty minutes later. The walk was very familiar to me, but felt entirely different now than the hundreds of times I had walked through the student center before.

I felt more out of place as I ordered Rosalie and I lunch than I had when I went here, which was saying something because I never felt like I belonged then, either. I spotted Rosalie quickly, her nose buried in a book at a small table off on its own.

“Look at you,” I chuckled, dropping a Styrofoam container of Chinese food in front of her. “ _Studying_.”

Rosalie was a smart woman. She had a business degree, but rarely did I ever see her study when we were in school. Part of it was because she didn’t need to, and part of it was because she was fine with barely passing grades. That didn’t seem to be the case now.

“You know what the worst part is?” she asked, grabbing her fork and angrily taking a bite of noodles. “I like it.”

“No,” I gasped, setting my phone on the table and taking a bite of my own noodles.

“Yeah. Which means eventually I’ll have to admit to Emmett that he was right. The man already has a big enough ego, Bella.”

I chuckled. “It’s good that you like it, though.”

“I guess,” she sighed. “But how did he know I’d like all of this when I didn’t? I mean, if you had told me four years ago I’d be _excited_ for an anatomy class I would slap you across the face.”

“Maybe because he loves you and understands you?”

“It’s just… intense sometimes, you know? That he knew me better than I knew myself.”

Rosalie, for the buckets of confidence that she exuded on a daily basis, was also just as insecure sometimes as the rest of the world. I was one of the very few people who ever saw that side of her.

“I think that’s the best part about being in a relationship,” I shrugged, popping a piece of orange chicken in my mouth and watching as Rosalie cocked her head to the side. “It’s nice having someone know you that much.”

Rosalie looked at me, wide eyed for a minute before smiling and shaking her head. “It took you a month to tell me where you were from.”

I rolled my eyes, getting her point immediately. “Three weeks.”

“Practically a month.”

My phone rang, Edward’s face popping up on the screen. Rosalie told me to go ahead, her eyes falling back on the book in front of her.

“Hi.”

“Hey. Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, is everything okay?” I questioned, wondering if this was work call or a personal call.

“Yeah,” he sighed, and I could practically hear a smile in his voice. “I just wanted to tell you that we’re in escrow.”

I was quiet for a minute, frowning down at my food. “What’s escrow?”

Edward chuckled over the phone. “The time between the sellers accepting our offer and us actually signing the papers.”

My frown quickly turned into a smile. “You bought the house.”

“We bought it, but, yes.”

“Oh, you’re very mistaken if you think I can afford a sixteen-million-dollar house.”

I made a lot of money now. Enough to be able to afford a nicer place than what Rosalie and I had now if I wanted, but I liked living with her. Still, it was nowhere near what even a down payment on that place would have been.

“You told me to put your money toward the house, and I did. Your name will be on the papers. We should be able to sign within the month, and its ours.”

“I…” I stuttered. I had told him to use the money towards the house, and I meant it, but I also knew that money wasn’t mine in the first place. “I mostly said that so you’d stop trying to give it to me.”

“Well,” Edward sighed, doing a very bad job at hiding his laugh. “Now we’ve got ourselves a house.”

“Edward,” I grumbled. “You paid for the house. You don’t have to –“

“It’s ours, Bella,” he said softly. “Even if you didn’t put any money toward it, which you did, I’d want your name on the papers, just in case.”

I frowned. “In case of what?”

“We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

“Okay,” I sighed.

We ended our call a few minutes later, Rosalie looking up at me as I put my phone down.

“What?”

“Apparently I’m in escrow on a house.”

“Holy shit,” Rosalie muttered, taking a bite of her chicken.

“Yeah,” I nodded, pushing my food around in my container. I wasn’t sure what the _just in case_ meant, and I felt a little odd at having my name on the papers of a house I definitely didn’t contribute in buying, but I also couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face if I tried.

“I want more details on this house thing, but I have a test in an hour so it’ll have to wait until Friday.”

I frowned. “What’s Friday?”

“Alice invited, or kind of demanded, we go out with her to some bar Friday night. I might have forgotten to tell you. You can go, right?”

“Sure,” I nodded, knowing if Alice was involved saying no wasn’t really an option. I genuinely enjoyed Alice’s company, too, and I hadn’t been spending enough time with Rosalie. My last choice of venue would have been a bar, but I could tolerate it for a while.

I left Rosalie to her studying a few minutes later. I was scrolling through my emails as I walked down the hall toward the door, coming to a stop when I heard my name called from beside me.

“Isabella Swan?”

I smiled, seeing one of my old professors walk toward me. She had taught a few of my higher-level marketing courses I had taken my last year here.

“Professor Michaels,” I smiled. “How are you?”

She never answered me. She eyed me up and down for a minute before sadly shaking her head at me. “You had a lot of potential,” she sighed. “It’s a shame you wasted it.”

She was walking past me down the hall before I could speak.

_Story’s out,_ I thought to myself, taking a deep breath before getting out of there as fast as I could.

**_…Closure…_ **

I collapsed in the front seat of my car, a myriad of emotions all fighting for dominance in my head. Usually, after a therapy session I was upset or confused or mad or a jumble of all three. Rarely did I ever feel better about myself afterwards. Today, I did.

I told Doctor Stanley about the restraining order and apparently that was a big gold star for me. It was a long time coming, and Doctor Stanley seemed impressed that I went ahead with the step seemingly without over thinking it too much. I had been holding on to all of the trauma my childhood had caused me, and that restraining order was the first step I had taken in a long time to try and let it all go.

My good mood was improved even further when I saw Edward’s name flash on the screen as I pulled out of the parking lot.

“Hi,” I beamed, even though I was alone in the car. Edward’s answering greeting was nowhere near as exuberant as mine. “Is everything okay?”

“There’s a boy coming to my house for dinner.”

I took a minute to try and figure out what exactly that meant, but I came up empty. “Um, what?”

“A boy. Coming over for dinner. Because he wants to date my daughter.”

“Oh,” I sighed, doing my best to keep from chuckling. “Is it Ethan?”

“Yes. _Ethan_ ,” Edward grumbled.

“You have to at least give him a chance,” I said softly. It wasn’t my business, and I knew how protective he was of his kids, but I also felt a little sense of loyalty to Lucy. Who I knew would be petrified if Edward got _too_ protective at their dinner.

I heard Edward let out a large sigh over the phone. “I know you just got out of your appointment, and if you don’t feel up to it I understand but… do you want to come over for dinner? Maybe keep me from strangling the kid?”

It made me a little sad, how hesitant he was to ask me. Which made my answer quick. “Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I just need to change and I can be there in… forty-five minutes.”

We ended the call quickly after that. Once I got home I put some food down for Lady while I changed out of my work clothes into a comfortable pair of jeans and a slightly oversized but too comfortable to resist navy blue sweater.

I grabbed Lady’s leash, taking her for a quick walk around the street before letting her hop in the back seat of the car. I didn’t like leaving her at home alone, especially after I spent the entire day at work, and she was becoming a little obsessed with Edward. Not that I could blame her.

She even recognized the house, a high-pitched squeak coming from her as I parked in his driveway. There was no other car around, which I assumed meant Ethan wasn’t here yet. I dropped my phone in my bag and went around to grab Lady, who immediately bolted out of the car and headed straight for where Edward was waiting at the door.

“She likes you more than me,” I chuckled, smiling down at the two of them as Edward greeted her with nearly the same amount of excitement as she had shown.

“She just doesn’t see me as much,” he shrugged, standing up when Lady went to investigate the rest of the house. Warm hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me against him. “Thanks for coming.”

I smiled up at him, pressing my lips just underneath his chin. “I didn’t want anyone getting strangled.”

A slightly strained chuckle came from Edward as he grabbed my hand and led me to the kitchen. He poured me a glass of wine without a second thought. I sat at the counter for a couple minutes and watched him fumble around the kitchen, his frustration at the situation very obviously messing with his head.

“Do you need some help?” I asked quietly, after he dropped two onions on the ground.

Edward sighed, leaning over the counter across from me. “I need my children to be six, not sixteen.”

I gave him a small smile, stretching my hand out to unclench the fists his were in.

“She’s sixteen. She should get to date. I just… I know what a sixteen-year-old boy thinks about on a date and it makes me want to lock her in her room until she’s in her twenties. I should have looked into the kid when you told me about him. I thought I had time, though, then she came home and asked if he could come to dinner and she looked so happy I couldn’t say no. But, now I don’t have time to do a background check and – “

“You don’t need to do a background check,” I interrupted. I could sit there and listen to him worry about her all day, because he was a good dad and cared about his kids more than anything and it was one of the many things I loved about him, but the background check was a little unnecessary.

Edward scoffed. “Oh, I’m doing the background check.”

“You don’t need to do a background check because I already did one,” I finished, staring down at our intertwined fingers for a moment or two before looking back up at him.

“You did?”

“I mean, not a full police background check. That seemed a little unnecessary considering he’s a minor. But, I, you know, might have looked into him a little bit after Lucy told me about him.”

It was an accident. Kind of. I was working late one night after she told me she had a crush on a kid named Ethan in her class and the next thing I knew I had scrolled through all of his socials and his parents’ and knew nearly all of their holiday traditions thanks to his mother’s Facebook page.

Edward’s face was a mix of surprise and… bewilderment, maybe, as he stared at me. “You looked into him?”

“Um, well, yeah. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t another Derek. He isn’t, at least he doesn’t seem like it. He plays just about every sport you can, depending on the season. He’s got an older sister at UCLA, which is where he’s planning on going, too. I couldn’t tell about past girlfriends, if there were any the pictures were probably deleted but – “

I was cut off by a kiss, quick and hard as Edward came around the counter to hover over me. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I smiled, glad he seemed a little less worried now.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Lucy sighed, walking around the corner with Lady happily prancing alone beside her. “When we were at the animal shelter Sunday you had your hair in this pretty braid that somehow like, wrapped around your head and then the rest of your hair was down. Do you think you could help me do that?”

I gave myself three seconds to internally cheer that we had gone from Lucy calling me a bitch under her breath to her asking me to help with her hair before I nodded and had her take the seat in front of me. I also made a mental note to buy something for Rosalie as a thank you for her teaching me how to do just about every braid imaginable years ago.

I secured the last pin in her hair just as the doorbell rang. Lucy hopped up, straightening her blue sundress before quickly walking to the front door. My eyes drifted over to Edward, who looked like he couldn’t decide between whether he was sad or angry or frustrated. Probably how I typically looked after a therapy session.

I walked over and wrapped my arms around him, squeezing as tight as I could. “She’ll be okay,” I promised before I could stop myself. It wasn’t a promise I could keep, but it made the stress seem to dissipate as his arms wrapped around me.

Lucy walked around the corner, Ethan beside her. Based on my research, I knew he was just a few months older than her and already seventeen. His brown hair was on the curly side, his eyes a darker shade of blue than Lucy’s. He was tall, too, hovering over Lucy who wasn’t on the short side herself.

“Mr. Cullen,” Ethan said quickly, holding a hand out to Edward across the island. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Ethan,” Edward nodded, very formal and very unlike how I knew him to be. I gave his free hand a squeeze.

“And, this is Bella. Dad’s girlfriend,” Lucy added.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ethan said with a smile.

“You, too.”

Edward would be furious, but he seemed like a nice kid. He had obviously dressed up for the evening, wearing a button down and some nice slacks. He seemed to have better social skills than I did, though the bar there wasn’t very high. His cheeks were even tinted red, which I took to mean he was nervous about the dinner, which meant he wanted it to go well.

Lady, ever the socialite, came running around the corner and started sniffing at Ethan. “I didn’t know you had a dog,” he smiled, reaching down to pet her.

“She’s Bella’s,” Lucy smiled. “But, she’s here a lot. Her name is Lady.”

Ethan laughed as Lucy told him the story behind her name. Lady, in what I decided was a show of solidarity, left Ethan rather quickly and came to sit right in the middle of the kitchen next to Edward’s feet. A couple minutes later Edward _accidently_ dropped a piece of chicken on the floor right next to her.

Dinner came together quickly after that, and eventually I was sitting at the table beside Edward with Masen, Lucy, and Ethan. Masen, always seemingly unfazed by everything, smiled at me as he sat down.

“Sorry everyone hates you again,” he said very nonchalantly.

“It’s okay,” I shrugged. “I’m getting used to it.”

Thankfully, my run in with my former professor was the worst interaction I’d had since the story leaked. I still got stares from all of my co-workers and Lauren liked to huff every time she saw me, but it was nothing horrible. Still, there were new stories and rumors every day, just like when the last picture leaked.

Edward sighed, giving my hand a squeeze underneath the table. He warmed up eventually, asking Ethan a few questions as the dinner went on. Thankfully, he managed to make them easy, simple questions like what sports he was playing this year and how his parents were.

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes when I found out Edward had known Ethan since he was about eight. He knew his parents, had seen them all at school events over the years. Still, he had wanted to do a background check on the poor kid.

I observed for most of the dinner, answering a few questions when they were tossed my way, but I didn’t want to get in the way of the interrogation. I watched Edward soften question after question, and I was pretty sure I saw the moment he realized he had to let go of the tight grip he had on his kids’ childhood.

“Hey,” I whispered, nudging his leg with my foot until he looked at me. “You’re a good dad.”

He gave me a small smile and squeezed my hand that he had kept a tight hold of all throughout dinner.

I was also pretty sure that was the moment I decided I’d give him just about as many other babies as he wanted. Maybe it was because he’d had sixteen years of practice, but he was so good at it, being a dad. He cooked them dinner nearly every night and he had them in a school that cost as much as some colleges and they adored him nearly as much as he loved them back. I knew he hated every minute of sitting there and watching Lucy and Ethan talk and laugh but he sat there with a smile on his face because he knew _she_ was happy.

More babies weren’t to replace Masen and Lucy. But, I wanted to be part of the experience this time.

I just about jumped out of my skin when my phone rang from the kitchen, still lost in my own little world.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, running over to turn it off. That was the plan, until I saw Jason Jenks’ name flashing on the screen. I answered the phone quickly, retreating to one of the guest rooms and quietly closing the door behind me.

“Hi, Mr. Jenks.”

“Sorry to bother you, Bella. I just wanted to let you know that the judge approved your case and you have a court date scheduled for two weeks from this Friday.”

“Oh,” I gasped. “Okay. Is there anything I need to do before then?”

“No, I’ve got it all covered. We’ll meet a few days before and I’ll walk you through what to expect on the day. Right now, you’ve got a temporary restraining order. If your step-brother ever gets near you before then, call the cops and they’ll have it on record.”

“Okay,” I repeated. My stomach dropped at his scenario, even though I knew he was only telling me so I’d know what to do in case of an emergency. “Thank you, Mr. Jenks.”

“Of course, Bella. Have a good evening.”

I gave myself a minute to myself, reminding myself that even though I was dreading the court process, it would hopefully be worth it in the long run. I must have spent more time locked in the guest room than I realized, because the table was cleared and Edward and Lucy were talking in the kitchen when I walked in.

“Thanks, Dad,” Lucy mumbled against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her.

“Just… be careful, okay?”

“I will.”

“I love you, you know.”

“I love you, too.”

Lucy ran off quickly after that, saying something about needing to call Elise. Edward caught me leaning against the doorframe when he turned back to the kitchen.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“The judge took my case,” I shrugged. “I have a court date two weeks from Friday.”

Edward grabbed my hand, pulling me against him. “That’s good,” he said tentatively.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I just want to get the whole thing over with.”

“I know,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Thanks for coming over tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” I smiled, thankful for the change of subject.

“You could spend the night if you wanted.”

I looked up at him, brows raised. “It’s Wednesday.”

“It is.”

“You said we should start with weekends.”

“We did.”

I rolled my eyes, equal parts annoyed and thankful for his lack of concern over the things I thought were worthy of sleepless nights of anxiety.

“I’d have to leave early.”

Edward smiled down at me, hands warm on my waist. “Just like old times.”

I intended to laugh, but then his warm breath fanned down my neck and his words sent memories of late nights and early mornings through my mind and I was a goner.

“Okay.”


	4. Last Hurrah

_I’m done with the heartache_

_I’m done with the demons_

_Can’t wait to be normal_

_Right after this weekend_

_I’m done with the drama_

_I’m fixing my karma_

_~ Bebe Rexha, **Last Hurrah**_

**BPOV**

Bars never really interested me. Not just because I had a nearly nonexistent tolerance for alcohol, but because the whole charade made me uncomfortable. The only bars I had ever really been to were college bars with Rosalie. I was already uneasy around men on a daily basis, but a bar full of drunk college boys really did nothing but make me miserable.

I could tell immediately that the place Alice had taken us to couldn’t be compared to the bars of my college days. This place was warm mahogany walls and plush couches, not wobbly stools and walls covered in bodily fluids.

Alice walked right through the crowd, before plopping herself down on a couch situated in the back corner.

“It’s reserved,” I said, picking up the little black and white sign on the table in front of us.

“For us,” Alice smiled. “Now, sit.”

I did as I was told, sitting on the couch that was far too comfortable to be in the back of a bar as an unapproved smile covered my face. I didn’t feel nervous or uncomfortable and I wasn’t secretly planning my escape in the back of my head.

“So, what’s the occasion?” Rosalie asked after Alice took it upon herself to order all of our drinks.

“Well, my plan is to be pregnant in the next few months, so I need to enjoy late nights and alcohol while I can,” Alice said with a smile and a nod.

“Are you not, you know, kind of terrified of the whole pregnancy thing?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Two sets of eyes, wide and overly excited snapped to me. Alice was the first to recover. “Are _you_ thinking about getting pregnant?”

“Oh, no,” I stuttered, shaking my head. “No, no, no. No. I mean, in the future, maybe. But, also maybe not, you know? I just, the whole idea of having something growing inside of you and then having to push it _out_ of you has always been kind of horrifying to me.”

“Well, yeah. That part isn’t going to be all that fun, but the rest will be,” Alice smiled. “I get what you mean, though. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself as much as possible, even now. A friend of mine loaned me her birth video, but I haven’t had the guts to watch it yet.”

I took a large gulp of whatever pink drink Alice had ordered for me, not caring about the burn as it slid down my throat.

“You’re both going to have adorable babies,” Rosalie sighed happily.

“I never said I was having a baby.”

“You will, and it’ll be adorable. I’ve done the math. Your relationship moves about four times faster than the average persons, so I’ll be Aunt Rosalie in no time.”

I snorted, shaking my head as I took another sip of my drink and searched for a good change of topic.

“What do you get a man with unlimited resources for valentine’s day?” I asked.

“Sex,” Alice and Rosalie said simultaneously.

“Well… besides that.”

Valentine’s day was never on my radar before. But, I was assaulted by candy hearts and stuffed animals at the grocery store yesterday and realized it was in a couple weeks. And, considering I had no prior experience, I had no idea what to do for it. I knew enough to know that sex was kind of a given, though.

“Oh, watches. Edward has a thing for watches.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Really?”

“Yeah. Do _not_ get him started about using your phone as a watch. I’ve had that lecture a dozen times.”

Watches. I could pick out a watch. I also had quite a salary that could go toward a nice watch, because I wasn’t all that sure what to do with the money I was making.

The waitress interrupted us then, dropping what looked like another one of the pink drinks in my hand in front of me. 

“Oh, I didn’t order this,” I told her. Excessive drinking wasn’t really recommended with the medication I was on, but a drink every now and then was okay. Based on the burn as this one went down my throat, one of these would be enough.

“It’s from the gentleman at the bar,” she said with a smile before walking away.

I looked up, half expecting Edward to be standing at the bar. Instead, there was a man with dirty blonde hair smiling at me. As if on cue, a couple more waitresses were back with drinks for Rosalie and Alice as well.

“Oh, let’s play a game,” Alice squealed. “Whoever gets the most free drinks wins.”

“Wins what?” Rosalie asked.

“The most free drinks,” Alice shrugged.

I rolled my eyes with a chuckle. Even with the music and the crowd and the waitresses coming over every now and then with yet another drink none of us ordered, it was a good night. Fun, even. The more Alice drank the more she agreed with me that the process of having a baby was kind of terrifying. Rosalie got on board after a few more drinks, but admitted that she wanted about as many kids as humanly possible with Emmett.

I was the most sober out of the three of us after keeping to my one drink limit, but I still managed to lose track of time. Until I started to see nearly all of the women around us turn their heads toward the front. After a few people got out of my line of vision, I saw Edward making his way through the crowd.

Emmett and Jasper were with him, but my focus was on Edward and the way his hair looked like he hadn’t stopped tugging at it all night and the top couple buttons undone on his shirt. That tiny sliver of skin gave me a bigger buzz than my earlier drink.

“Hi,” I squeaked out as he sat beside me. I saw Jasper and Emmett sit beside Alice and Rosalie, but they all drifted from my focus.

“Hi,” Edward smiled, pressing a kiss to my neck. “You look like you’ve had a good night.”

“It’s much better now,” I blurted out, feeling a familiar blush creep up my cheeks. “How was your night?”

Alice, ever the coordinator, had Jasper invite Edward and Emmett out for drinks tonight as well. She had forbidden them from having said drinks here, though.

“Much better now,” he said with a lazy smile that told me he was a little drunk.

“Another one, ladies,” our waitress, Rachel, said with a smile as she set yet another drink down on the table in front of me.

“Damnit,” Rosalie groaned. “Bella won.”

“Won what?” Edward asked.

“The most free drinks,” Alice smiled. “We’ve only paid for three drinks all night.”

Edward’s eyes turned to me, the playful emeralds burning darker as he looked at me. “You had the most men sending you drinks all night?”

“I didn’t drink any of them,” I shrugged.

“But, they kept sending them.”

I shrugged again, feeling my blush deepen as Edward’s eyes drifted away from my mine until he had sufficiently eye-fucked me.

“Are you ready to go?”

I nodded quickly, barely having time to wave to Alice and Rosalie before Edward was pulling me through the crowded bar. He ushered me into a large, unfamiliar SUV.

“I’m drunk,” he shrugged, before telling the driver to head home.

It was no Uber, because it smelled lovely and the seats were clean and the man driving us was in a suit. I rested my head on Edward’s shoulder for the drive, letting the soothing circles he rubbed into my thigh nearly drift me off to sleep.

The rush Edward had been in to leave the bar seemed to be gone by the time we got home. He held my hand as we walked through the front door, Lady immediately jumping all over both of us as soon as we were inside.

I knelt down to pet her, smiling as she nudged her head underneath my palm. “Thanks for picking her up.”

My original plan had been to go to my own home for the night, because of Lady. Then Edward offered to pick her up on his way home so she would already be at his place for the weekend.

“Anytime,” he smiled, reaching down to rub her ear before he headed off to the kitchen.

He seemed suddenly gloomy, so I wandered after him. He slid a bottle of water across the island toward me when I walked in.

“I’ve never been a possessive man,” he muttered quietly, taking a sip of water. “Christ, with the way the last sixteen years of my life have gone, how could I be?”

I nodded, spinning the water bottle in circles on the counter.

“But, now, I have you. And just the idea of men sending you drinks because they want to –” he stopped, shaking his head. “Is enough to make me fucking furious.”

I walked over to his side slowly, slipping off my uncomfortable heels in the process. As soon as I was within his reach he had me sitting on the counter in front of him. My legs wrapped around his waist on their own accord.

“I know,” he continued. “I know exactly what was going through their heads as they sent you those drinks… all of the things they wanted to do to you.”

I sighed, my arms falling over his shoulders. While I might have thought he was overreaching on how interested any of the men were in me, I understood where he was coming from.

“So, why don’t you do them to me instead?” I asked softly, my abdomen in knots as forest green eyes snapped to me.

He was quick to take action, his hands gripping my thighs as he pulled me from the counter and made quick work towards the stairs. His lips were on mine, firm and unyielding as he dropped me to my feet in his bedroom, my back flush against the locked door.

“You have no idea,” he panted into my neck, his fingers snaking their way up my thigh. “How heartbreakingly beautiful you are.”

I had no time to answer him, my head falling back against the wall with a thud as two fingers slid inside me. My mind was blissfully empty, focused on nothing other than his fingers and tongue as it traced patterns on my neck.

“I’ve had many dreams about you in this dress,” he whispered against my skin, chuckling softly as I whimpered when he pulled his magical fingers away and led me toward the bed.

I frowned down at the dress. It was simple, black with a sheer layer of floral lace that continued down my arms. It was on the low-cut side, but most things Rosalie helped me pick out were.

Edward twisted me quickly, my back pressed against his front. Warm hands traced over my abdomen, thoughts about my dress quickly vanishing.

“It’s the first dress I had the honor of peeling off of you,” he clarified, fingers falling to the zipper at my back.

“You remember what dress I was wearing?” I asked quietly.

“Oh, I remember everything about that night.”

My dress fell to the floor, Edward’s hands returning to my abdomen before sliding into the waistband of my final scrap of clothing and sliding it down my legs.

“I remember how good your skin tasted for the first time,” he muttered, fingers returning to their earlier ministrations and forcing me to work harder to focus on his words. “I remember the way you moaned my name as you came on my tongue. I remember knowing one night was never going to be enough.”

I wasn’t sure whether I pulled him on the bed or he tackled me, either way I ended up underneath him on the cool comforter, trying desperately to even out the clothing situation. I only managed to get his shirt tossed to the side before he moved, lips quickly wrapping around one nipple while his other hand paid ample attention to the other.

“You’re mine,” he groaned, switching to torment my other breast. “Ever since that night, you’ve been mine.”

I nodded, tugging at his hair. “I’m yours.”

He pulled away quickly, standing at the end of the bed and unbuckling his belt as slow as fucking possible.

“Please,” I whined.

“Turn over,” he grunted, finally getting rid of the rest of his clothing.

As soon as I did as he said, he grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me to the edge of the bed. My feet hit the floor, my upper body pressing into the mattress under the weight of Edward leaning over me.

“I love you,” he sighed softly against my shoulder.

I smiled, craning my neck toward him for a kiss. “I love you, too.”

The gentle moment passed quickly, his hands taking a firm grip on my hips before he entered me in one quick thrust.

My nails dug into the comforter, my eyes squeezed shut. The only cognitive thought that my mind was capable of was _more_. I needed more of his hands on me and more of his grunts of pleasure and more of him inside me.

“More,” I moaned. “Please.”

His hands tightened on my hips and his thrusts got sharper and my orgasm washed over me, wave after wave until my legs gave out on me and the only thing keeping me from sliding off of the bed was Edward’s firm grip on my hips.

He flipped me over quickly, taking himself in his own hand and coming in four long spurts over my abdomen and chest.

I laid there, completely spent, flinching in surprise when a warm wash cloth wiped over my stomach. Edward pulled me to my feet, keeping a firm grip on my waist as I wobbled unsteadily.

I smiled up at him, reaching up on my toes for a kiss. I went in looking for a soft, sweet kiss but ended up back on the bed underneath him, feeling his length hardening again against my thigh.

“More,” he moaned against my neck, switching our positions with ease until I was straddling his waist. Both of his hands slid along my abdomen until they cupped my breasts.

I was spent. Couldn’t think straight and was pretty sure if I tried to stand up I’d topple right over, but there was no hesitation when Edward lined himself up and I sank down on top of him. I let out an involuntary whimper, spurred on by the firm grip Edward had on my hips to move me however he wanted.

My eyes fell to his. Behind the lust-filled haze darkening the pretty emeralds I loved so much, I saw all of the insecurities and doubt his marriage had left behind in him. I knew the reason he got, sometimes overly, jealous whenever a man looked at me or bought me a drink was because he spent seven years in a marriage where his wife was with another man and he was all alone.

I had a hundred different doubts about our relationship floating through my mind at any given time, ranging from my own physical inadequacies to all of the emotional baggage I constantly carried. It was silly to think Edward didn’t have the same kind of thoughts, at least every once in a while.

I pulled at his shoulder until we were chest to chest. My arms wrapped around him, fingers buried in his hair.

“I’m yours,” I repeated, eyes locked on his as I continued to move over him. The words fell out of my mouth over and over again until we collapsed into the bed, a mess of limbs and sheets.

After I caught my breath, I took a couple extra minutes to lie on top of him and listen to his own heart rate start to slow underneath me. Just because I understood where his insecurity came from, didn’t mean I liked it.

“Edward?” I mumbled softly, turning to rest my chin on his chest so I could see him.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.” He couldn’t say the same, and while that was the cause of some of my own issues, that wasn’t the point right now. “I don’t see that ever changing.”

He pressed his lips together, one of his hands coming up and gently cupping my cheek. His voice was quiet, a little gruff, when he spoke. “I love you.”

I smiled up at him, stretching up to press a kiss to his jaw. “I love you, too. I’m happy to help you work out your frustration on the subject any time… but I just thought you should know.”

Edward let out a loud chuckle, his somber mood seeming to be gone for good as he ushered me toward the shower.

**_…Closure…_ **

I was never clumsy. According to my parents I was the klutz of the century, but that was a rant to go on to Doctor Stanley. In my day to day life, I could handle most tasks with grace. I could walk up and down the stairs without falling and I could run on a treadmill without landing on my ass. Usually.

Today, I was a klutz. Today I had stepped on Lady four times. I managed to burn _both_ of my ears and a thumb as I curled my hair. I dropped my shampoo twice in the shower and very nearly ended up on my ass as I tried to get out of it.

“I said I was sorry,” I groaned, seeing Lady in the mirror glaring at me from the bath tub behind me. I could hardly blame her for avoiding me now.

I double checked that the curling iron was unplugged and turned toward her. She begrudgingly accepted my ear scratches and I got a very tentative lick on my wrist that I took to mean I was forgiven.

The doorbell rang as I got dressed, making me nearly topple over. I grumbled to myself over my outfit as I went downstairs. At my meeting with Jenks a few days ago, I was given a literal list of dos and don’ts when choosing my outfit for the day. Because the world was seeping with sexism and if I wore a skirt to court the entire situation would be my fault, apparently. I was in a pair of black cropped pants that I had never once worn and a simple, cream blouse. On the average day I wouldn’t have hated it, but being told I had to wear it made me despise the whole thing.

After nearly slipping on the last step, unfortunately right in front of Edward’s annoyingly glass front door, I opened it for Jasper.

“Hi,” I squeaked out, surprised. I had expected there to be a package on the doorstep, not an actual person.

“Hey,” he said, very obviously doing his best not to laugh in my face at my near fall.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, a calm smile on his face. I stood back, letting him inside and closing the door behind him. “Edward called Alice the other day. He didn’t go into specifics at first, just that there was something you had to do, and you didn’t want him going with you. I get it. Any one of the family can cause a commotion if the right person is waiting with a cell phone. So, I volunteered. I’m much less conspicuous than the rest of them, I promise.”

I was quiet for a minute. Edward had asked more times than I could count if I wanted him to come with me today. I did, but I told him no. Because then a photo would leak of him walking into a courthouse and a hundred different theories about _why_ he was doing that would appear online and it would be a giant web of gossip that could have easily been avoided.

As much as my instincts told me to tell Jasper I was fine and attempt to tough it out alone, I felt much calmer than I had all morning now that he was here.

I wouldn’t necessarily call Jasper and I friends. I saw him at family dinners or events but we weren’t texting each other on the weekends. We got close on the trip to the Maldives, though. He and Carlisle taught me how to play chess. I lost miserably every time, but it was still fun.

He was always very calm. Serene. Probably an excellent mentality for an orthopedic surgeon. I couldn’t see him ever losing his composure in an emergency. He brought with him an undeniable sense of peace. So much so that I didn’t think twice about accepting his offer.

“Thanks,” I sighed. “I just need to grab my bag.”

He nodded, a hint of a smile cracking his calm exterior. “Be careful.”

We were both quiet on the drive over. I was doing my best not to overthink the whole situation and back out completely. Jenks had waited until our meeting a few days ago to tell me I would have to testify in front of the judge. Answer a few questions under oath at the very least.

As much as I didn’t want to do it, I’d had this feeling that last few days that I was on the edge of… something. Feeling better. Feeling safer. Feeling happier. Something good. And I knew the catalyst was going to be finally having that flimsy piece of paper that said Tyler Dwyer wasn’t legally allowed within a hundred yards of me.

I repeated that to myself over and over until Jasper parked his car in front of the courthouse. I saw Jenks already standing on the steps, waiting. Jasper walked with me, grabbing my elbow when I nearly tripped over a curb.

“Bella,” Jenks greeted with a smile, giving my hand a firm shake before turning toward Jasper. “Doctor Whitlock.”

The two of them made pleasant conversation for a minute before Jenks turned to me. “Ready?”

 _No_. “Yes.”

“I’ll wait for you out here,” Jasper added softly. “Good luck.”

I gave him as much of a smile as I could muster and followed Jenks inside. We went through a metal detector before actually making it inside.

“You should turn your phone off, if you have it on you.”

I nodded, fishing it out of my bag as I followed him through the building. I had one unread message from Edward flashing on the screen.

_I’m really proud of you for doing this. Love you._

**_…Closure…_**

For a long time, the only way I knew how to deal with my life was to repress most of it. It took Rosalie months to get to know the simplest things about me because I didn’t want to think about myself at all. I wanted the first eighteen years of my life to disappear. Sometimes _I_ wanted to disappear.

The further I got from my past, physically and time-wise, the easier things got. Especially with the distraction of school. I lived distraction to distraction, used Rosalie’s sample work-out plans as a way to let myself get rid of my anger without actually feeling it in the first place. I thought I had won. Gotten myself out of the shitty situation and moved on.

They had won, though. For a long time. Because I was barely surviving back then. I was nearly as miserable as I had been as a teenager, constantly on edge and worried and scared whenever I wasn’t studying.

Today, I won. I answered the few questions I needed to without letting them get to me and within the hour the judge ruled that Tyler wasn’t allowed within a hundred yards of me for the next five years.

Jenks had shaken my hand, given me a kind smile and talked to me for a few minutes afterwards. I didn’t remember a single thing he said. My ears were ringing as I left the courthouse, Jenks getting pulled aside by a colleague before he could make it out with me.

The fresh air hit my lungs as I took a deep breath outside, the sun warm and nearly blinding after the dark courthouse, but I didn’t care. I sat on the stone steps, ignoring the frowns I got from people as they walked around me, breathing in the fresh air like I had just narrowly escaped being pulled under the rough current of the ocean.

It was true, kind of. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in fifteen years and it was magnificent.

“Everything okay?”

My eyes snapped to Jasper, now sitting beside me. My verbal filter was gone, the random thoughts floating through my head coming out without a second thought. “Yeah. I… I let them hold me back for a long time. I never enjoyed anything because I was always scared or working to distract myself from being scared. And it’s finally over. Kind of, at least.”

I knew my blissful clarity over the situation would be fleeting. I had a lot of other things I could worry about. Restraining orders were easily broken, but it was a level of protection against Tyler and my entire childhood that I had never had before.

“I don’t really know what to do with myself now,” I admitted. “Now that I can do whatever I want and… enjoy it.”

Jasper’s eyes softened as he looked at me. “You never had much of a childhood, did you?”

I shrugged, figuring his questions stemmed from him and Alice trying to have a baby of their own. “I had one. It just wasn’t all that enjoyable.”

His eyes lit up a minute later, before he nudged my knee and hopped up. “I know what we need to do. Come on.”

I had no time to ask questions before Jasper was taking the steps two at a time. Even when we were in the car, he didn’t answer any questions. I took the quiet drive to send Edward a quick text to let him know what happened, because I knew he was probably in the middle of a rehearsal. I went through a few emails before Jasper parked the car, a big smile on his face as he hopped out.

The sign was hard to miss, bright and flashing and arched right in front of us.

“The Santa Monica Pier?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I took Alice here on our first date. She said carnival games were fun whether you were four or forty. I’m pretty sure you can relive all of the best parts about being a kid here.”

A smile tugged at my lips. Spending the day at the pier would never have been on my to-do list after a day like today. But, at the same time, it kind of seemed like the best day to do it.

My nose caught a whiff of greasy goodness, my head turning in the direction of a pretzel stand.

“I could really go for a giant, salty pretzel,” I admitted.

**_…Closure…_ **

Jasper held the front door open for me, grabbing stuffed animals as they fell in my wake. There were various cars in Edward’s driveway, a few of which I recognized, so I wasn’t surprised to see Carlisle, Esme, and Alice in the kitchen with Edward.

“Hi,” I smiled, dropping my pile of toys on the empty counter. I grabbed one I had already decided was safe enough for Lady and tossed it across the room for her to run after.

“Hey,” Edward gasped, staring wide eyed at me from across the island. “Where have you been?”

“Jasper took me to the Santa Monica Pier,” I said, plopping myself down in one of the stools. “And I won every game. Well, probably not every game. But a lot. This one is for you,” I smiled, grabbing the plush bear that was holding a _Be Mine_ heart and handing it to him.

Edward gave me a sweet if not surprised smile, accepting the bear as Alice sat next to me.

“Then, this guy told us about an axe throwing place across the street.”

His sweet smile disappeared, turning into a worried frown. “Axe throwing?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “You throw axes at a wall. I don’t know why I waste so much money on therapy when that exists,” I joked. My own chuckle disappeared and a frown covered my face when no one else laughed.

The room was very tense, I realized. Carlisle and Esme were in the corner, arms crossed but small smiles on their faces at they looked in my direction. Alice was distractedly picking through the stuffed animals on the counter, Jasper standing behind her as oblivious to the elephant in the room as I was. Edward leaned over the counter, eyes on the bear in his hands.

“What’s with the doom and gloom?” I asked. “It’s never a good sign when _I’m_ the chipper one in the room.”

I was still in a weirdly good mood. Maybe it was a sugar high or the fresh air or the two hours spent throwing an axe at the wall, but I felt pretty good compared to how I did at the beginning of the day. Right on cue, I heard footsteps to my right and watched as Irina sauntered down the hallway toward the kitchen.

I let out a deep sigh, nodding. “I get it now.”

“Lucy’s almost ready,” she said, walking over to stand next to Edward.

Lucy. There was some valentine’s dance at their school tonight. I had known Alice would be over to drop off Lucy’s dress, and that Carlisle and Esme wanted to come by and see her off, too. Irina being here was not part of the plan I was told, though. My jaw clenched as I looked at her and Edward, side by side. Alice, thankfully, pulled my attention away from them.

“I love this super chipper version of you,” she said with a smile. “But… I have to ask about the outfit.”

My eyes fell down to my clothes. My court attire hadn’t been all that comfortable for a day at the pier, so Jasper and I found a little tourist store and I picked out the best options there, which happened to be a pair of cut off jeans shorts that were probably an inch too short and a tie-dye _I Heart LA_ t-shirt.

“I was in boring court clothes and I hated them. This was the best I could find.”

“Ah,” Alice nodded.

“Oh,” I sighed, ruffling through the stuffed animals until I saw the tiny little stuffed fairy. “Jasper won this one for you.”

A bright smile covered her face as she turned toward Jasper. Unfortunately, Alice’s attention diverting to her husband meant mine went back to Edward and Irina.

“I want weekly dinners, or maybe even weekends – “ Irina started, but was quickly cut off by Edward.

“No.”

I tried not to take any joy in the shocked and slightly hurt look on her face. “No?”

“I told you, if they want time with you, they can have it. I’m not forcing them to have dinner with you or spend the weekend with you. They asked to live here permanently. It’s their choice.”

“They’re teenagers, Edward. They’re never going to _ask_ to spend time with me.”

“Lucy asked for you today.”

“So, my children get to spend more time with _her_ ,” she spat out, eyes glaring in my direction just for a minute before turning her wrath back toward Edward. “Than they do me?”

I could see Edward’s jaw tense. “You don’t need to constantly bring Bella into it, Irina. This isn’t on her.”

“Part of it is,” Irina grunted. “She’s been a pain in my ass since the day I met her.”

_Ditto_ , I thought to myself, only to realize the word must have popped out of my mouth based on the smirks I got from everyone except Irina.

Lucy’s excited call from the stairs changed the mood immediately. Smiles quickly replaced every frown in the room as she walked around the corner. “I’m ready!”

I stayed in my chair and watched the commotion from afar. I knew getting anywhere near Lucy while Irina was around was a bad idea, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with her again.

“You okay?” I turned, seeing Carlisle leaning on the counter beside me.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I’m very okay with everything today. Don’t know why. I’m sure it’ll wear off soon.”

We were both quiet for a few minutes, but it was a comfortable silence. Not the kind where you’re frantically looking for something to say to fill it because it’s so awkward.

“You’re a very impressive woman, Bella,” Carlisle said quietly.

I kept my eyes down, not really sure how to respond to him. I knew why he was saying it, knew they all knew what I had done today. For as fine as I had felt, I still wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Do you want a lion?” I asked, holding up a small stuffed animal.

Carlisle smiled and gratefully accepted the toy before Esme called for him. I followed him, opting to stay off to the side as I watched Ethan come in, as well as another girl I had never seen. Lucy and Ethan and Masen and the new girl took a couple dozen pictures, Alice and Esme arranging everything while Edward spent most of the time looking like he was trying to turn back time. Irina was still there, taking pictures of her own. Lucy caught my eyes at one point, giving me a big smile and a wave. I caught Irina glaring at me a minute later.

Even with the fights and the insults and the drama that I knew would always be waiting around the corner with Irina around, I was still happy. There was still this overwhelming sense of relief coursing through me, so her glares and snide looks did nothing to me. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Edward appeared in front of me, gently running the backs of his fingers over my cheek.

“Yeah,” I smiled.

Edward hesitated. “You seem… different.”

“Might be the outfit.”

He chuckled, but shook his head.

“I just… I’m not so scared anymore,” I admitted.

I watched an array of emotions play over his face, everything from frustration to sadness until he landed on a small, comforting smile as he wrapped his arms tightly around me.


	5. Never Be The Same

_It’s you, babe_

_And I’m a sucker for the way that you move, babe_

_And I could try to run, but it would be useless_

_You’re to blame_

_Just one hit of you, I knew I’ll never be the same_

_~ Camila Cabello, **Never Be The Same**_

**BPOV**

“Oh,” I gasped, very narrowly escaping a mascara catastrophe as Edward’s arms wrapped around my waist from behind. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, smiling at me through the mirror before pressing a soft kiss to my neck. “Are you almost ready?”

I nodded dropping my mascara in my makeup bag. “Are you almost ready to tell me where we’re going?”

I watched him fail at suppressing a smile as he stood up to his full height behind me. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and ignored my questions. “I just need to take a quick shower and we can go.”

My petulant pouting was put on hold as I watched him start the shower and discard his clothing piece by piece into the hamper. It was _very_ hard to be mad at him when he was naked. And wet. And he knew it.

“That’s not fair!” I shouted over the spray of the water, listening to him laugh as I left the ensuite. 

While, logically, I knew Valentine’s Day was mostly just a holiday for greeting card companies and candy manufacturers, the whole charade was easy to fall for this year. I woke up to a beautiful bouquet of roses waiting for me in the sitting area of Edward’s room. There was an accompanying box of chocolates that definitely wasn’t the cheap stuff from the grocery store. Sitting beside the flowers was even a small, heart shaped dog treat for Lady.

We spent our morning on a hike, Lady in tow. While a little bit of the adrenaline high from yesterday was gone, I still felt ten times lighter as we walked. I enjoyed the warm sun and the gentle breeze of Los Angeles more than I ever had. My butterflies made a surprise reappearance every time Edward’s hand squeezed mine as we walked. A constant reminder that I had finally been able to let go some of the fear and anger that had been holding me back for so long.

We had a quick breakfast after our hike, on the patio of a café that wasn’t too far from his house, before stopping to pick up donuts for Masen and Lucy. Both of which were still asleep when we left the house at nine.

I watched with a smile as Edward set a card and single red rose on one side of the counter, a twenty-dollar bill on the other. As soon as he announced there were donuts, both kids were downstairs within the minute. Lucy smiled at her rose and note, giving her father a hug and a kiss on the cheek before taking her treasures and donut back up to her room. Masen pocketed his twenty, holding out his hand for a fist bump from Edward as he quickly left with his donut, too.

I liked seeing their little traditions. Sometimes it made me sad that there were sixteen years’ worth of them that I didn’t get to see, but I also knew there were years and years’ worth of them ahead that I would get to see. Plus, there was the fact that I was a child when they were making most of those traditions. That made it pretty easy to move past the idea.

Edward left the house again a few hours later, telling me I should be ready to go by the time he got back. Except he didn’t tell me _where_ I should be ready to go to.

I got dressed in the closet, wrapping the bright red dress around me until everything was perfectly situated. Once I was dressed I dropped my phone into a small clutch, pulling out the meticulously wrapped box from the bedside table.

“Ready?” Edward asked, walking out of the closet as he straightened his suitcoat over his shoulders.

“Yes,” I smiled, walking over with his present behind my back. “But, I want you to open this first because I’m too impatient to wait.”

I had taken Alice’s advice and gotten him a watch. A _very_ expensive watch. I found his stash of watches, all precisely arranged in a drawer in his closet, and took a picture of every one to make sure I didn’t get him something he already had. Then I spent a good two hours at the store, pestering the saleswoman with picture after picture until I found what I hoped was a unique one to add to his collection.

My favorite crooked smile popped up on his face as he took the box. He sat on the small bench in front of the bed, tossing aside the wrapping before opening it up.

I watched all of the emotions pass over his face; shock and awe were the most prominent, before realization must have hit him. “Bella, this is…”

“A very expensive watch,” I finished for him. He had a dozen of them in his closet. I knew there was no getting around the price once he saw it.

“Yeah,” he blurted out, eyes finally looking up at me. “You don’t have to spend your money on me. I – “

“I even got it engraved,” I said, ignoring him. I grabbed the box from his hand, turning the watch over to show him the short engraving on the back of the face.

_Love, always._

Edward leaned his elbows on his knees, eyes on the watch back in his hands.

“I make a lot of money,” I said quietly. “Not a million an episode, but a lot considering I still live in the same house I could afford in college and you never let me pay for food and I have a job title about ten years ahead of schedule.”

I watched him look at the watch, turn it over in his hands before I realized maybe he wasn’t hesitating only because of the price. “Do you not like it?”

“I love it,” he said quickly, honesty ringing through his voice. He stood up, pulling his sleeve up until he could unclasp the watch around his wrist and replace it with the new one.

I reached up on my toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Good.”

I started to understand the allure of buying expensive gifts. His smile as he looked at his wrist made me very happy. As I was turning for the door, he grabbed my arm and had me sit where he had been a minute before.

“Oh, not so fast,” he said, pulling a box out of his suit coat. “You don’t get to complain about the price, either. Or ever again.”

I pressed my lips together, but gave in. “Okay.”

Edward smiled, handing me the box. It was sturdy with an intricate pattern on the top. The red leather smooth underneath my fingertips which I knew meant whatever inside was probably equally as expensive as the watch on his wrist, if not more.

I opened it slowly, failing at my attempt not to gasp as I took in the necklace. There were two diamond encrusted rings hooked together, falling from a platinum chain.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed out, tentatively reaching out to touch the smooth platinum rings.

Since I was under strict instructions not to tell him it was too expensive, I stood up and handed the box back to him while I worked on unfastening the emerald that was hanging from my neck. I quickly switched the necklaces out in the box, handing the new one to Edward with a smile.

I held my hair out of the way as he fastened it, smiling when it finally settled against my collarbone. “Thank you,” I said quietly, turning around with a smile. Edward reached up, cupping my cheek, but said nothing. Only looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Ready?”

I nodded and we headed downstairs, hand in hand, making a stop in the living room where Lucy as lounging on the couch, Lady beside her.

“There’s money on the counter for dinner for you and Mase,” he said, dropping some cash down on the counter.

“Thanks,” Lucy smiled, her head turning away from the television. “You look pretty.”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me. “Oh, thank you.”

“We’ll be back late, but please have whoever you’re sneaking over gone by ten,” he said. I could tell by the strain in his eyes he was only half joking.

“No one is sneaking over,” Lucy said with an eyeroll.

“Ten,” Edward repeated, walking over to press a kiss to the top of her head. “Tell your brother the same for me.”

“How do you know they’re sneaking people over?” I asked Edward as he led me to the car. Lucy had seemed pretty sincere when she rolled her eyes and said no one was coming over.

“Because they’re sixteen. With their first parental approved boyfriend and girlfriend. And we’ll be out of the house for a significant amount of time. They’re good kids, but they’re not _that_ good.”

I shook my head with a chuckle, adding my ignorance to the growing list of reasons why I wasn’t parent material.

“Put this on,” Edward said, holding out one of his ties to me.

I frowned down at it. “Excuse me?”

“Over your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because our destination is a surprise, and you’ll be able to figure it out if you can see where we’re going.”

I wanted to argue, but I also appreciated the effort he seemed to be going through for whatever our evening entailed. Once the tie was secured around my head, I felt a finger tap my nose.

“Hey,” I groaned, pulling my head back.

“Just a test,” he chuckled, his hand grabbing mine as I felt the car start to back up. “You look good in a blindfold,” he added.

My cheeks heated up as I huffed. The drive wasn’t too long, thankfully. And my attempts to focus and try and track the direction of the car were a good distraction, even though I had gotten lost after only a few minutes.

“Stay there,” Edward said once the car stopped. I listened as he got out, pictured him walking around the car in my mind before my door opened.

He had a firm grip on one of my hands and an arm around my waist as he led me a few steps before pulling me to a stop. He carefully pulled at the tie until it fell, but it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the setting sunlight.

When I could finally see straight, I smiled at the sight of the house in front of me. _Our_ house.

“What are we doing here?” I asked through the giant smile on my face.

“We can go to a fancy dinner any time,” Edward shrugged, walking forward and opening the front door. “I thought the evening called for something a little more… private.”

I walked through the door as he held it open, my eyes immediately falling to the left where a fire was burning in the marble fireplace. There was a small, round table set up in the empty room. A couple of chairs surrounding it, a candle resting on top of it.

Even though all of the furniture that I had come to expect every time I saw the house was gone, the bare bones of the place were still beautiful.

I shook my head, walking over to the table and running my fingers over the soft white cloth. “This is much better than a fancy dinner.”

Edward smiled down at me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Sit. It’ll only take me a few minutes to heat up the food.”

I did as I was told, sliding my heels off in the process. They were tall and uncomfortable and if I wasn’t sitting in a restaurant surrounded by people, I had no need for them.

My eyes wandered around the room as I waited and listened to Edward rummaging around in the kitchen. My butterflies reappeared, fluttering around my stomach as my mind wrapped around where I was sitting.

This would be the house I’d come home to every day, probably for the rest of my life. It was a place that wouldn’t be muddled by divorce or affairs. There was a very good chance I’d one day sit in this same room with a baby in my arms, a little piece of Edward and I in a tiny little bundle.

Masen and Lucy would come home from college for the holidays here. There would be birthdays and graduation celebrations and every other family affair one could think of. Most of which I never had much experience with.

A house could just be a house. It was a luxury not everyone could afford, and I was more than grateful to have a roof as pretty as this one over my head. But, this place was more than just a shelter. Because it was going to be the one place I had ever lived where I wasn’t scared. I didn’t have to worry what was lurking around the corner or go to bed sad and alone every night here.

“You okay?” Edward asked as he sat a steak down in front of me that was about the size of my head.

“Yeah,” I nodded quickly, carefully wiping the wetness on my waterline before it could slide down my cheek.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I just,” I shrugged, not sure how to put how I was feeling into words. “I like it here.”

Edward was quiet for a minute, eyes on me until he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head. “We can sign the papers Tuesday.”

“This Tuesday?”

He nodded, sitting down across from me. “If you’re free.”

“I can be free.”

Maybe Valentine’s was supposed to be an escape from reality, a romantic night alone with your partner where you didn’t think about life or kids or work. I had done a lot of escaping in my twenty-three years, though. So, over our candlelit dinner, we planned.

Technically, we could move into the house Tuesday, but we had no furniture. We would spend the next few months buying furniture and painting walls and getting things ready so we could move in around the beginning of June, after Masen and Lucy were out of school.

It took Edward a good half hour to convince me they were fine with me moving in. He seemed confident they were, even as I listed off all of the reasons they shouldn’t be.

Then, he tried to hand me a credit card so I could buy whatever furniture I wanted, whenever I saw it. Which lead to a whole other topic detour until I begrudgingly stuffed the card in my wallet. I made enough money to buy a nice watch, but it wasn’t enough to furnish a sixteen-million-dollar house.

After we had finished our dinner, Edward took the plates to the kitchen and I started straightening up the table. I had just blown out the candle, not wanting to burn the place down before we ever got to move in, when soft music started flowing through the room. I didn’t have time to look for the source before warm arms were around my waist, gliding me side to side.

It was only a few minutes into the relaxing swaying that Edward spoke up.

“When do you want to get married?”

I froze, only moving because Edward’s grasp on me kept me doing so. “What?”

“This seems to be the night to make big decisions.”

My brows knitted together, my heart feeling like it was trying to break through my chest. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“No. You’ll know when I’m asking,” he said, a deliciously cocky smirk on his face. “I’m asking when you want me to ask. I know how important your career is, and if you want to wait until you’re older to get married, we’ll wait. But sometimes… sometimes I look at you and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to ask you if you want to go down to the courthouse tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to wait,” I blurted out quickly, the words coming out before my brain had a chance to think them through. They were true, unequivocally. I knew some women had master plans where they got married at twenty-five and then had their first kid by thirty and so on, but my age didn’t matter much to me. It was usually something I tried not to think about, considering Edward was twelve years older than me and I was only six years older than his children.

From a publicity standpoint, waiting would have been smarter. It would only fuel a dozen rumors if we got married too soon. People would assume our affair had started before it did, or that I was pregnant again, or that I had fast tracked my plan to get my hands on Edward’s money.

From a personal standpoint… I just really wanted to marry him.

“Okay,” Edward nodded with a smile.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Well… what does okay mean?” I asked. Was it an ‘Okay, let’s get married,’ or an ‘Okay, let’s talk about getting married,’ or even an ‘Okay, we’ll think about it.’

“Okay means… I’ll take what you’ve said into consideration,” he said carefully.

“Into consideration?”

“Yes.”

“Well… what does _that_ mean?”

“That means I love you,” he sighed, tightening his hold around my waist and leaning down to press his lips to mine.

I knew the kiss was a distraction. Luckily for him, it was a very welcome one. For as many questions as I had, I also had the most important answer. Which was that he seemed to want to marry me as much as I wanted to marry him.

So, I let myself relax into the kiss until I found myself naked on the hardwood floor in front of the fire with the weight of Edward on top of me.

**_…Closure…_ **

The weekend went by quickly. The signing of what seemed to be a hundred papers to finalize the purchase of our house did not. It was worth it though, because now I had a photo of Edward, Masen, Lucy, and I standing in front of said house sitting on my desk at work. The place was still empty, but it was ours.

“Bella?” Tanya’s voice came from the speaker on my phone. “Leon Woods is on his way in to see you.”

I frowned, my eyes falling over the calendar I had pulled up on my computer even though I would have remembered if I had a meeting with the head of Edward’s network scheduled.

“Thanks, Tanya,” I said, putting away what I was working on just in time for Leon to walk through my office door.

“Isabella,” he boasted, seeming to be in a good mood. He walked in with a smile on his face, which I found odd. The only time I had ever seen him he was all business. That was under a fairly stressful meeting, though.

“Mr. Woods,” I greeted, standing from my chair to shake his hand.

“A house warming gift,” he said, handing me a bottle of wine, elaborating as I frowned down at it. “I just came from a meeting with Edward.”

“Ah,” I sighed, relieved our address wasn’t suddenly plastered all over the internet. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

We both sat down, Leon getting right to it. “I won’t waste your time, I know you’re a busy woman. But, I’d like to bring you on as the head of public relations for The Tonight Show.”

“Oh,” I gasped. It was an intricate web, the difference between publicity for Edward and The Tonight Show. Edward _was_ The Tonight Show, for the time being. But, The Tonight Show was a culmination of years of previous hosts as well.

Technically, I had kind of already been handling publicity for the show. I needed to in order to get Edward’s name out of the gutter it had ended up in before. I had never met whoever was in charge of the show’s publicity, though. They were never around. I had assumed it was because Edward had refused to work with them.

“I’d love to,” the words came out of my mouth before I made a conscious decision. It would be a fine line, because Leon could very well choose not to up Edward’s contract in a year and a half and I would end up being in charge of the publicity of the show when someone else took over. The show was doing spectacular, though, and I had every confidence that they would re-up his contract.

“Excellent,” Leon nodded. “My assistant will send over all the necessary information. I’m glad to have you on board, Isabella. You made good progress with Edward.”

“Thank you.”

With another shake of our hands, Leon was gone. I sat back down, still a little surprised at the whole interaction. Leon was an important man, he didn’t just go around hiring PR specialists for his shows. Not unless he’s trying to make a point.

He knew I’d quit the job if he replaced Edward. He knew Edward could very well be holding a grudge after they tried to replace him. The tables had turned, and now _he_ was sucking up to Edward to make him stay.

I was chuckling to myself as my phone rang, a photo of Edward popping up on the screen.

“So?” he asked as soon as I answered.

“So?”

I could practically hear his eyes roll. “Bella.”

“What did you do to scare off the other publicist?”

I heard him chuckle on the line. “I’m pretty sure he accepted my bribe to leave me alone. Unlike you.”

“You can’t just go around bribing people,” I scolded.

“I haven’t tried to bribe anyone since this pretty little brunette showed up in my dressing room.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes.

“So?” he repeated. “Did you take it?”

“I did.”

“Good. We’ll go out to dinner this weekend to celebrate.”

Before I could tell him about Leon’s plot to get on his good side, I saw Renata walking towards my office. After a quick goodbye I hung up with Edward just as she walked in my office.

“The Tonight Show?” she asked, leaning against the door jam.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Impressive.”

“He just doesn’t want Edward holding a grudge after the whole Biers thing.”

“Still. Leon Woods doesn’t personally hire you unless he respects you.”

I shrugged, still thinking the whole things was mostly to get him back on Edward’s good side.

“Well, you’re about to be even busier. I’ve got a girl coming in this afternoon I want you to meet with. Just got herself out of a shitty management deal and lost her entire team. She’s got potential, but her former manager is going to be a problem.”

“Who was it?”

“Aro Volturi.”

“Oh,” I grumbled. Aro Volturi had a reputation for being an asshole. He worked his clients to their breaking point and then a little farther to make some more profit off of their breakdowns. He had clauses in his contracts which basically forced them to stay with him, or continue to pay him for five years after they separated. Which was fucked up on every level.

“Yeah. Three-thirty in the conference room.”

“I’ll be there.”

**_…Closure…_ **

“Are you going to Coachella?” Lucy asked, more like squeaked, as she sat next to me at the kitchen counter. She had been helping Edward cook while I did some more work, but once her job was done she took a seat next to me. And, apparently, started eying my calendar.

“For work, not fun,” I clarified, as I watched Edward’s back stiffen as he stirred something on the stove.

“Dad,” Lucy whined, the kind of whine only a teenage daughter could use on her father.

Edward sighed, turning around to lean over the counter across from us. “We already talked about it, Lucy.”

“Yeah, and just as you were about to give in, tickets sold out.”

“Well, if tickets are sold out, it’s a moot point.”

I watched Lucy frown at Edward, before she turned to me. The frown was gone immediately, replaced with a sweet smile and those Cullen eyes that were very, _very_ hard to say no to. Alice had them, Edward had them, and Lucy apparently had them, too.

“You know, my birthday is coming up.”

I nodded, knowing I was walking directly into a trap. “I do know that.”

“Well, if you were, I don’t know, thinking of getting Masen and I any kind of present – “

“Lucy,” Edward interrupted. “Go tell your brother dinner is almost ready.”

“Dad – “

“Go.”

We both waited a minute, listening to her stomp upstairs.

“They want to go to Coachella?”

“They’ve wanted to go for years. Seventeen is the age limit to go without a legal guardian present, though.”

“Ah,” I sighed. “Were you actually going to let them go this year?”

“I was contemplating. Then lucked out with the tickets selling out.”

I pressed my lips together. I knew it came from a childhood of abuse, but seeing Edward so obviously act as the overprotective parent always made me fall in love with him a little bit more.

“I’d be there,” I shrugged. “I’ll be with Ashley, but I could check on them every few hours. Plus, I know their blood types in case of an emergency. I can tell her I can’t get tickets if you want me to, though.”

I watched Edward think it over for a few minutes. Long enough for me to get distracted by the pout of his lips before they opened again. “You don’t mind checking on them?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“If you can get the tickets, then… I’m sure they’d love it.”

A squeal came from the hallway, Lucy running over and immediately wrapping her arms around my neck until breathing became an issue.

“This is _amazing_ ,” she gushed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

I got a high five from Masen as he walked by, the least I could give him with Lucy still strangling me.

As Edward finished dinner, the kitchen was filled with plans. Edward grumbled under his breath at every one, and I sent an email to the booking agent that got Ashley her spot at the festival who had already offered me extra tickets.

The doorbell rang as I was setting Lady’s food in the corner for her. Edward’s grumbling increased as Ethan walked around the corner holding Lucy’s hand. The other girl from the night of the dance coming in behind them standing close to Masen.

She was pretty, hair that was a unique mix of blonde and brown and hazel eyes that nearly matched her hair. Her name was Mona, if I remembered correctly from the night of the dance.

“Hi, Mr. Cullen,” she said quietly, obviously nervous.

Thankfully I was setting Lady’s water bowl down behind the counter when a small chortle escaped me. I had gotten better at the whole ‘Mr. C’ thing the last few weeks. Mostly because I was better at holding in my laughter. It still got to me for some reason. Probably because it wasn’t that long ago that _I_ called him Mr. Cullen.

“Hello, Mona,” Edward smiled, charming as ever. “You guys can go take a seat, we’ll bring the food in.”

I stood as the group of teenagers retreated to the table. Once we were alone, I got an incredulous look from Edward.

“Every time, huh?”

“I’m getting better,” I said defensively. “I don’t know what it is. I’m too scared to ask Doctor Stanley about it because I’m pretty sure she’ll tell me it’s daddy issues again.”

It was a joke. Mostly. So, I didn’t mind the loud laugh when it echoed throughout the kitchen. It took Edward a good sixty seconds to calm down. When he did, he looked over at me with his eyes bright and a smile on his face, seeming happier than I had seen him all night.

“Thank you for that,” Edward sighed happily, dropping a kiss to the top of my head as he grabbed a couple plates. I followed behind him, salad bowl in hand, smiling to myself as I sat down at the table beside him.

As with Ethan’s introductory dinner, I kept to myself and let Edward and the kids fumble their way through it. I had done my snooping on Mona after the Valentine’s dance last weekend and knew she seemed like a good kid, too. Edward wasn’t quite as intense as he was with Ethan’s first dinner. Maybe because he got it out of his system then, or maybe because the odds were probably better that Masen would break Mona’s heart instead of the other way around. Not because I thought Masen would do anything mean on purpose. Just because that was how teenage boys acted, from what I had been told.

Long after the dinner was done and Masen and Lucy had retreated to their rooms, Edward and I ended up on the sofa in the living room. The sun was long gone, the lights of the city illuminated in the distance through the windowed wall. My back rested against his chest as I matched my breathing to his, Lady’s head resting on my foot at the end of the sofa. It was, quite possibly, the most perfect way to end the day.

“You seem better this time,” I mumbled, a little reluctant to break the comfortable silence but still glad that he didn’t seem as devastated that Masen was dating now, too.

I felt him let out a deep breath behind me. “I’m trying to let go. A little. I know I’m probably being too overprotective. Shit, kids start dating at about twelve these days. But… I was their age when I made some really stupid decisions and I don’t want them to do the same.”

“Being a little overprotective isn’t a bad thing.”

I craned my neck, turning my head upwards toward Edward just as he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my lips.

“They both asked me if you were coming to their birthday dinner earlier,” Edward said hesitantly.

“Birthday dinner?”

I felt him nod behind me. “The whole family always goes out together for dinner to celebrate.”

I had no qualms about going out to dinner with Edward and his kids to celebrate their birthday. It was the _whole family_ part that made me hesitate. “Who exactly does the whole family entail?”

“My whole family,” Edward started. Very obviously starting with the easiest part of the list first. “Irina and Demetri.” Strike one.

“Irina’s parents.” Strike two.

“And my grandparents.” Strike three.

“That’s quite a lot of people that, you know, hate me.”

“Irina’s parents hate everyone, myself included. They see the kids once a year, give them a check, and head back to Florida.”

Irina’s parents were the least of my concern. I had no interest in having dinner with them and didn’t really care if they hated me or not, but it would make for an uncomfortable evening to say the least.

“Irina and Demetri know they’re on thin fucking ice. They won’t start anything. My grandparents are actually very excited to meet you.”

“Oh, I met them. For about twenty seconds at Alice’s wedding before Carlisle rushed me away because he thought they’d call me a whore.”

“He rushed you away because I told him you could get… skittish. My grandparents can be a little intense about their religion, but they’re not hard to get along with.”

I bit my lip, fiddling with my fingers until Edward’s intertwined with mine to make me stop.

“You don’t think me being there is going to cause a big fight?”  
“No,” Edward answered firmly. “The kids want you there. It’s their choice, no one else’s.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll go.”

A firm kiss got pressed to the top of my head, making me smile. Everything seemed almost _easy_ these days. Yeah, there were restraining orders to deal with and ex-wives to handle, but those things didn’t seem as daunting when I got to end a majority of my nights like this.

The problems didn’t matter when he held my hand as we walked up to bed or cornered me in the shower with a kiss that took my breath away until I had my head buried against his shoulder to muffle the sounds me made me make. Life was simple as I sat in bed, computer in my lap as I listened to Edward lock up the house and check to make sure neither of his children had snuck out. Or snuck anyone else in.

“Hey,” I grumbled, my computer suddenly snatched from my lap.

“It’s almost one in the morning. You don’t need to be working,” Edward said with a shake of his head, dropping my laptop to his bedside table.

I frowned at him, grabbing my bag to pull out my tablet. “I just need to check one – “

As soon as I had the tablet in hand, it was snatched from me, my bag disappearing as well.

“You’re always stealing my stuff,” I grumbled, my frown deepening as I watched him put all of my things on the floor beside the bed.

He grabbed a book that had fallen out on the bed in our scuffle, staring at the cover for a minute before muttering, “Complex post-traumatic stress disorder?”

“Oh, yeah,” I shrugged. “Doctor Stanley only made a formal diagnosis to help with the restraining order. Compiling all of my issues into one little phrase doesn’t really change anything,” I blathered on. “It showed the court I wasn’t lying, at least. Doctor Stanley was out of town this week, so she told me to read that.”

I finally got my lips to stop moving and watched as Edward eyed the book.

“What… what’s the difference?” he asked quietly. “Between complex and… regular?”

It wasn’t the question I was expecting, but it had an easier answer. “Complex is from prolonged… trauma. Regular is usually a more singular event.”

I watched him nod and flip the book over in his hands, eyes skimming the back. “May I read this?” he asked gently, finally looking at me. “When you’re done?”

“Sure,” I answered quickly, a little taken aback at his question. “I’m already done.”

It was a basic book, nothing too sinister inside. I was also, apparently, a very textbook case of the disorder. There were no symptoms or descriptions in there that Edward hadn’t seen me go through for himself. The avoidance of any situation that might make me the slightest bit uncomfortable, the insomnia and short temper and need to be constantly distracted so I didn’t think. He had seen it all.

And he was still here. So, him reading about those things didn’t worry me too much.

He put the book on his bedside table before shutting off the light. I buried myself against him, his arms a little tighter around me than usual.

“I’m sorry I stole your stuff,” he admitted quietly.

“It’s okay.”

His eyes were on me, black in the lightless room but saying everything I knew he was thinking.

_I’m sorry you’re hurt._

_I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do to take it away._

I wasn’t sure how long it was after I had finally fallen asleep, but at one point in the middle of the night as I was resituating myself, my eyes cracked open to see Edward sitting on the couch across the room, a pile of fur in his lap and a book in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple side notes: one, the age to get into Coachella without a guardian is eighteen, but for the sake of this story we’re going to say its seventeen. Two, I have no personal experience with complex ptsd, nor do I know anyone that has it. This story isn’t meant to diminish anyone’s struggles with it, or cause anyone with it any discomfort. It’s fiction, through and through.


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